Latest / Meet Your Double Feature | Movie Reviews & Forgotten Films / Deep-Sea Dumbness & Airplane Improv - Sphere (1998) vs. Memphis Belle (1990)

Transcript

Deep-Sea Dumbness & Airplane Improv - Sphere (1998) vs. Memphis Belle (1990) · Meet Your Double Feature | Movie Reviews & Forgotten Films

• 0:09
  Tonight on Meet Your Double Feature, a Navy research team
• 0:13
  travels to the bottom of the ocean to investigate a
• 0:16
  mysterious alien spacecraft in Sphere.
• 0:19
  Then a World War 2 Air Force bomber travels deep into enemy
• 0:23
  territory to complete its final mission in Memphis Belle.
• 0:28
  It's a perilous 90s double feature, and it starts right
• 0:32
  now. Hello, and welcome to Meet Your
• 0:41
  Double Feature, a double-blind movie review podcast.
• 0:44
  My name is Thomas, joined as always by my brother Frank.
• 0:46
  Frank, how's it going? Excellent.
• 0:49
  That's not what I usually say. That's not what I usually say,
• 0:55
  is it? Bill and Ted, come on.
• 0:58
  Tubular. Tubular.
• 0:59
  Yeah. Bodacious.
• 1:00
  All right, Anyway, welcome back to the show.
• 1:03
  Frank usually says he's excited. That's why I got confused.
• 1:06
  We're back here for what I think is episode 10 of season 1 for
• 1:09
  Meet Your Double feature. Now, Frank, folks at home might
• 1:12
  not see any significance in that, but a long time ago, when
• 1:16
  I first told you I wanted to make a podcast, this was
• 1:18
  already. Years ago, you bought me a book
• 1:20
  for Christmas called So you want to Start a Podcast, which felt
• 1:23
  passive aggressive, but I read it.
• 1:25
  I. Don't don't actually remember
• 1:28
  that but. Literally call So you wanna
• 1:31
  start a podcast? Parentheses idiot.
• 1:35
  Just open it up and just like, good luck loser.
• 1:40
  It's actually a pop up book, but there was a statistic in there
• 1:43
  that I remember from way back then that was I think 90 plus
• 1:46
  percent of podcasts never make it past 10 episodes.
• 1:51
  Like that was the cut off where most people I think realize that
• 1:54
  it's either too much work because it's not most likely not
• 1:57
  their job at that point, they can't make time for it or they
• 1:59
  just realize it's not as fun as they thought it was going to be
• 2:02
  or you know, any number of factors.
• 2:03
  But for us, this is episode 10 and we also had a bonus review
• 2:08
  go out about Tron Aries, which means after today we'll have
• 2:11
  beaten the record. We're in the top 10%.
• 2:14
  Oh, we did it all right. I'd like to thank the Academy.
• 2:17
  Like to thank the Academy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:19
  I'm sure that the monetization mummy's mummy monetization
• 2:22
  mummy's going to come rolling in.
• 2:26
  Anyway, that's a small threshold for the show.
• 2:29
  So very happy about that. This will technically be our
• 2:31
  11th episode to go out, but today is episode 10 of our main
• 2:34
  programming. So for anybody who's listened to
• 2:36
  every episode so far, of course want to say thanks.
• 2:39
  And we'll keep doing this as long as we can.
• 2:41
  Still fun for us. Yep, still excited.
• 2:45
  All right, well for anybody who maybe this is their first time
• 2:47
  listening, I'll go ahead and quickly recap how Meet Your
• 2:50
  Double Feature works. The way things go on our show is
• 2:52
  that every episode Frank and I both ask the other to watch and
• 2:55
  review a movie that neither of us has ever seen before.
• 2:58
  We then give each film a score out of 10 to find out who
• 3:01
  between us gave the better blind movie recommendation.
• 3:04
  We also keep track of the cumulative scores for all the
• 3:06
  movies that we've recommended right now as we come in towards
• 3:10
  the last couple episodes in our first season, Frank, we're like
• 3:12
  almost tied. I think it's like one point
• 3:14
  separates us in the Season 1 totals.
• 3:17
  It's anybody's game. Yeah, it's it's a nail biter.
• 3:21
  It's a nail biter. Yeah.
• 3:22
  So I think we have tonight's episode and then two more.
• 3:27
  And so episode 12 will be like the Season 1 finale.
• 3:29
  And then we'll probably have some in between content before
• 3:32
  just resetting the board for Season 2.
• 3:34
  But all of that said, why don't we get into the reviews for
• 3:36
  tonight's episode? Frank, can you remind the folks
• 3:39
  at home the film you asked me to watch for this one?
• 3:42
  Yeah, let me just look it up real quick to remind.
• 3:45
  Look it up. Check the notes.
• 3:50
  Oh yes, I knew the whole time. Yeah, 1998's sphere.
• 3:55
  Sphere, the film title that will test the quality of your podcast
• 3:59
  microphone. Because that is.
• 4:00
  Really going to light up the pop filter I think.
• 4:04
  A little peek behind the curtain there.
• 4:05
  I, I think at the end of the last episode, I pitched this as
• 4:09
  a movie that I thought you and I had maybe caught like 10 minutes
• 4:12
  of on TV once. Did that turn out to be the
• 4:15
  case, or was I completely off about that?
• 4:18
  I, to quote Gandalf the Grey, have no memory of this place.
• 4:22
  Not a single frame of sphere was familiar to me at all.
• 4:25
  Good, good, great. OK.
• 4:27
  All right. I don't remember the story.
• 4:29
  There are other films where that has been the case of like, oh,
• 4:31
  we caught part of it, like in a hotel room once and then never
• 4:34
  saw the rest or like, on a family vacation or something.
• 4:36
  But yeah, I don't know what this story is.
• 4:38
  I'm not sure if it ever happened.
• 4:40
  All right, never mind. Disregard everything.
• 4:43
  Disregard. There is no personal connection
• 4:46
  to this film. So what do you think?
• 4:50
  Sphere, Yeah, sphere sucks. I'll just.
• 4:54
  Yeah, OK. So but like, in a way that's at
• 4:57
  least interesting to talk about, which is good for us.
• 4:59
  For contents, I looked at the IMDb trivia when I was done
• 5:03
  watching Sphere and the first anecdote on there was that
• 5:07
  Dustin Hoffman, critically acclaimed actor, the star of the
• 5:09
  film said that in his opinion, the version of Sphere that was
• 5:14
  released in theaters was, quote, unfinished.
• 5:21
  I think in his mind there was more to be done, but budget and
• 5:25
  release windows caught up to them.
• 5:27
  And in his mind, the star of the movie admitted that he thought
• 5:30
  the movie was not a finished product when it hit theaters.
• 5:33
  And I got to say spot on, Mr. Hoffman.
• 5:36
  Oh really? Like it.
• 5:37
  Like it actually feels like an incomplete film in some way.
• 5:42
  It feels like an incomplete edit of a film like.
• 5:45
  Budget wise, Sphere is actually a fairly impressive looking
• 5:49
  science fiction film for the late 90's.
• 5:52
  The premise of the movie is that Dustin Hoffman is a psychologist
• 5:57
  who is brought in to a secret government arrangement taking
• 6:01
  place in like the middle of the Pacific Ocean where they tell
• 6:04
  him that they think they've encountered an alien spacecraft
• 6:08
  crashed at the bottom of the ocean that they think has been
• 6:10
  there for like, hundreds of years.
• 6:12
  And they want to put together a team of like, leading minds to
• 6:16
  essentially initiate first contact with the alien that
• 6:19
  might still be in there. So that's like your set up.
• 6:22
  So it's like a big underwater movie.
• 6:24
  And I got to say, this follows in the tradition of big
• 6:26
  underwater movies and that it is awful.
• 6:28
  Oh wait, what's another bad big underwater movie?
• 6:31
  So many. I mean, maybe these will be more
• 6:33
  controversial, but like, have you ever seen The Abyss?
• 6:36
  James Cameron's The Abyss. I don't think I have actually.
• 6:39
  That movie, This one even like Water World, any time you
• 6:45
  actually have to have your actors like in the water
• 6:48
  underwater for extended sequences, I feel like you could
• 6:50
  just see how visibly tired and frustrated everybody is by all
• 6:54
  of it. And it never creates a movie
• 6:57
  with like a fun vibe. It always just feels like dour
• 7:00
  and annoying and it just translates in almost every
• 7:04
  occasion and Sphere is no different.
• 7:05
  It's a very visually impressive movie.
• 7:07
  It's not like it looks bad. There's some great computer
• 7:10
  effects and there are a lot of interesting, legit underwater
• 7:13
  photography that they probably filmed in some giant pool
• 7:17
  somewhere in Hollywood. So that's not the problem.
• 7:20
  It's more so that the film has a terrible script and an awful
• 7:23
  story. Oh wow, terrible script and
• 7:26
  awful. Are we talking bad dialogue?
• 7:28
  Is that one of the? Really bad dialogue like Sphere
• 7:32
  is in a camp. You'll recognize in that it is
• 7:35
  based on a novel written by Michael Crichton, who several of
• 7:40
  his films have been turned or several of his novels have been
• 7:42
  turned into films, most famously Jurassic Park in the 90s, only a
• 7:46
  few years before this. I think.
• 7:47
  Another is Armageddon, a bunch of stuff, but Sphere is like
• 7:53
  dumb Jurassic Park, or maybe like dumb James Cameron's
• 8:00
  Aliens. What, in that it's a similar
• 8:03
  narrative but just done poorly? Yeah, like, similar in certain
• 8:08
  respects. Like the whole first part of
• 8:10
  Sphere has a pace to it that if done better, could have
• 8:14
  resembled the opening act of Jurassic Park because we kick
• 8:18
  off with this element of mystery.
• 8:19
  Again. The opening of the movie is
• 8:21
  Dustin Hoffman wakes up in the passenger seat of like a two
• 8:24
  person helicopter that is flying out into the middle of the
• 8:27
  Pacific, taking him to the location for some unknown
• 8:30
  mission. He's been called in by the
• 8:31
  government because he's just an expert psychologist.
• 8:34
  First of all, who on Earth falls asleep on a helicopter?
• 8:39
  Like a teeny tiny helicopter flying out over the ocean?
• 8:42
  You expect me to believe this man just nodded off?
• 8:46
  No, absolutely not. I also a a lot of movies will
• 8:49
  will do that. And I remember I had, I had a
• 8:51
  film professor who would always be like, why would you ever show
• 8:55
  your like character on screen, like, like sleeping or falling
• 8:59
  asleep? Because that's just going to,
• 9:01
  like, incite your audience to do the same, you know, to like,
• 9:04
  feel like pretty much sleepy and tired.
• 9:07
  Yeah, we don't. The movie kind of opens as he
• 9:10
  opens his eyes, so we don't get too much of that.
• 9:12
  But it does immediately. You know, this is my first time
• 9:14
  watching it. I was like, OK, is that in there
• 9:16
  as like the opening? Because this is going to be some
• 9:18
  weird, like it was all a dream kind of story and it's not.
• 9:21
  So I again, I don't actually know why that's how the movie
• 9:23
  opens. It just find it funny because
• 9:25
  Dustin Hoffman's character in the film is not like laid back
• 9:28
  and unfazed. He's a fairly anxious 50 year
• 9:31
  old psychologist in the middle of the ocean talking to an
• 9:33
  alien. Like he's not cool or suave, but
• 9:36
  he's just like straight chilling in the back of his helicopter
• 9:39
  even though instead he'd probably be like seasick.
• 9:41
  Like, oh, so they do they do meet an alien though, that they
• 9:44
  talk to. That's that's interesting.
• 9:46
  At least I'm looking. Forward to hearing about that.
• 9:48
  OK, in a way they do that. The the premise of Sphere
• 9:51
  intentionally changes like 3 times.
• 9:53
  You don't really land on what the real premise of the movie is
• 9:56
  until like an hour into it, which is another point against
• 9:59
  it I would say. I mean, it maybe could have been
• 10:01
  done well, but this opening framing device, again, try to
• 10:06
  picture this in contrast, like the beginning of Jurassic Park,
• 10:08
  the like introduction of characters and then lead up to
• 10:10
  that big moment where they actually see the living
• 10:12
  dinosaurs and everybody freaks out.
• 10:14
  For Sphere, we have Dustin Hoffman being brought in.
• 10:17
  He's trying to talk to the helicopter pilot.
• 10:18
  He's like, do you know what's going on?
• 10:20
  And the helicopter pilot says, no, like I thought you would
• 10:22
  know. But then when they land at their
• 10:24
  destination, it's just like a Navy ship in the middle of the
• 10:27
  ocean. And he's like, what's going on?
• 10:29
  What's going on? And they just shove him into
• 10:30
  like some quarters and they don't come get him until later.
• 10:33
  In the meantime, he sees a couple of other people there
• 10:35
  that he recognizes like other leading experts. 1 is like an
• 10:39
  astrophysicist, 1 is a renowned mathematician, and I think the
• 10:42
  other is a biochemist. So it's like this varied team of
• 10:45
  experts who Dustin Hoffenhall personally knows.
• 10:48
  And he's like, what's going on? Why are we here?
• 10:50
  And then like the very next scene, they're just like alien
• 10:53
  ship spot of the ocean alien. Ship Wait, why does he know?
• 10:57
  Why would he know those people from those completely different
• 11:00
  disciplines? That is intentional.
• 11:02
  And also, again, probably where the court could see that the
• 11:04
  movie loses me like right off the bat.
• 11:06
  So First off, we we squander any opportunity to build up to what
• 11:10
  is a fairly impressive visual of them going like thousands of
• 11:15
  feet underwater to this underwater habitat to live in
• 11:18
  and then leaving from there to go into this massive hull of a
• 11:21
  crashed alien ship. They just spoiled the whole
• 11:23
  game. They're like alien ship, duh.
• 11:26
  And it's like, OK, why did we, why did we create this pretense
• 11:29
  that it was something else only to almost immediately give it
• 11:32
  away without using that as time to build characters?
• 11:36
  Like again, Jurassic Park? It'd be like if they show Doctor
• 11:39
  Grant like a video capture of the dinosaur, like the second he
• 11:41
  shows up in the movie anyway. So that part's lame.
• 11:47
  I thought that was a waste of opportunity.
• 11:49
  Like there's some intrigue for like 5 minutes and then it's
• 11:52
  it's gone. The reason to your question,
• 11:54
  Frank, why Dostin Hoffman knew these other experts is because
• 11:58
  he reveals, or rather someone reveals back to him, that at one
• 12:02
  point in a previous government administration, Dustin Hoffman
• 12:05
  had been asked to write a briefing for the government
• 12:07
  about how to handle a first contact situation as just like a
• 12:11
  psychological expert. And he admits to one of the
• 12:14
  other characters played by Samuel Jackson, that he just
• 12:17
  fudged the whole thing because he thought it was stupid.
• 12:19
  He did no real research, he just wrote down a bunch of pseudo
• 12:23
  scientific nonsense about like well you need a mathematician
• 12:26
  because that's probably our shared language is mathematics
• 12:28
  and well I guess you need a biochemist.
• 12:30
  And when looking for specific recommendations, he just wrote
• 12:33
  down people he knew. OK, so he just happened to
• 12:36
  already know these people and that's how they all wound up
• 12:39
  here to get that's that's lazy. That's lazy script ready.
• 12:44
  Indeed, lazy and uninteresting. Like, oh.
• 12:47
  Exactly. Uninteresting is a great way to
• 12:49
  go. It's like, wow, that's dull,
• 12:51
  huh? Like these guys all know each
• 12:53
  other. We don't get to have any of the
• 12:55
  initial conflict of the meeting and having to explain their
• 12:57
  characters. The other three, because this is
• 12:59
  most of the cast, It's very small cast movie.
• 13:02
  The mathematician is Samuel Jackson, who I would say gives
• 13:05
  the best performance in the movie because he knows what kind
• 13:07
  of silly movie he's in. So good for him.
• 13:10
  Sharon Stone is the biochemist. She gives a horrible
• 13:13
  performance, Not her fault she has some of the worst dialogue
• 13:17
  in the movie and just doesn't know what to do with it.
• 13:20
  And then the other guy on their main team of four is Liev
• 13:25
  Schreiber, who I guess maybe most people would know from the
• 13:27
  Ray Donovan TV show. Or a Saber tooth for a minute.
• 13:31
  A hot minute. I I know him a Saber tooth.
• 13:33
  He's always Saber tooth to me. Always Saber to you.
• 13:36
  Liev Schreiber is a astrophysicist who is like
• 13:39
  younger than the other characters and a little more
• 13:41
  like anxious. He's always trying to prove
• 13:43
  himself that he's like a spark guy 'cause he's got like
• 13:45
  imposter syndrome. That's our four person cast.
• 13:47
  They take this team of experts down who the main character
• 13:50
  admits almost immediately are not the right people for the job
• 13:53
  and their entire approach is wrong.
• 13:55
  But he doesn't tell anybody this, even though he's just been
• 13:57
  told there's an actual alien they have to go talk to because
• 14:00
  in his, in his words. Well, that would be fraud if I
• 14:03
  admitted that I made all of this up.
• 14:06
  So in order to dodge personal consequences, he just ignores
• 14:09
  it. And even though he admits this
• 14:11
  to the other characters, they don't care either.
• 14:13
  He tells Samuel Jackson immediately.
• 14:14
  He's like, hey, you really don't need to be here.
• 14:17
  I've roped you into a situation that's above all of our heads,
• 14:20
  even though we're not qualified to handle it.
• 14:22
  And Samuel Jackson's just like, ah, alien ship.
• 14:25
  Would that be? How is that fraud?
• 14:28
  Like, I don't know that that that seems loose too.
• 14:31
  Like yeah, loose. Is the problem.
• 14:33
  He just says like, well, I can't admit it.
• 14:36
  And it's like, OK. Like you definitely could.
• 14:39
  You absolutely could. I mean, I don't think it's a
• 14:42
  plot hole that the US government would rely on this like 20 year
• 14:46
  old report from one guy about how to handle first contact if
• 14:49
  they were panicked and if it just was like a pressing
• 14:51
  situation like governments being silly and bureaucratic,
• 14:54
  whatever. That's not even really the plot
• 14:56
  hole. It's more So what a dumb set up
• 14:59
  for this premise to not even be like a second act thing.
• 15:03
  They immediately tell you, oh, this is all gibberish, we're not
• 15:05
  the right people for the job, and then our approach doesn't
• 15:07
  make any sense before they even have begun the approach.
• 15:10
  Yeah, yeah. And then Sharon Stone comes in.
• 15:13
  She's like, you're telling me we're some kind of
• 15:14
  astrophysicist, marine biologist squad like.
• 15:17
  We're Oh my God. OK, I have a Suicide Squad
• 15:21
  reference note in here, do you remember?
• 15:24
  Glad we're on the same. Page yes, there was a very memed
• 15:28
  line from the like the bad Suicide Squad movie where
• 15:31
  they're trying to deduce one of the characters and the guy says
• 15:34
  something like I would advise not getting killed by her.
• 15:38
  Her sword steals the souls of its victims.
• 15:41
  Yep. I appreciate the accent that you
• 15:42
  flew on through on me too, Yeah. Especially she was turning into
• 15:46
  me trying to do accents even though I never do that.
• 15:48
  Like, that's not OK. I didn't write down a specific
• 15:53
  example, but Sharon Stone talks like that the whole movie.
• 15:57
  Like she has to give these over long expository sentences to get
• 16:02
  information across, but they all like run for too long and it
• 16:05
  doesn't sound like anything this person would ever say.
• 16:08
  Like it feels so compacted into a piece of dialogue that there's
• 16:11
  no way to deliver it naturally unless you're like, like playing
• 16:15
  with the material or making it into multiple sentences.
• 16:18
  So she's got a whole lot of I would advise not getting killed
• 16:20
  by her going on in this movie. That's that's rough.
• 16:25
  That's rough for her Turnstone very competent actress, but
• 16:29
  they're. All good.
• 16:30
  This is like a good cast, but again, I think only Samuel
• 16:34
  Jackson had like enough experience being in dumb movies
• 16:37
  to be like I know what to do. He was in Jurassic Park.
• 16:40
  He. Was like, that's a good point.
• 16:42
  Hold on to your butts. Anyway, so that's like the first
• 16:45
  part of the premise I have trouble with is like, why would
• 16:47
  you not just let this be 4 characters who meet over the
• 16:49
  course of the movie? Or why would you not like, use
• 16:52
  that tension as like, a secret that he has to keep or, you
• 16:55
  know, something with, like, stakes?
• 16:56
  Because in the end, there's no consequence to his reveal
• 16:59
  because he never tells the Navy. And after a certain point, it
• 17:02
  doesn't matter. So like, why is that part of it
• 17:03
  that Dustin Hoffman fudged his way through a government?
• 17:06
  Briefing, well, it's like, I mean they.
• 17:09
  Asked him and he was like, I don't know these guys like
• 17:12
  there's nobody else. They're just like, why are we
• 17:14
  just trusting what Dustin Hoffman says?
• 17:16
  Yeah, exactly. I don't know why they went.
• 17:18
  They didn't like if it's an old briefing too, why they wouldn't
• 17:20
  ask somebody new that already works directly for the
• 17:23
  government because you end up giving pretty massive security
• 17:25
  clearance. Here's the other part that
• 17:26
  doesn't make sense. They found an alien ship at the
• 17:29
  bottom of the ocean. They assume because there's like
• 17:32
  vibrations coming from it, that it's like active somehow.
• 17:35
  So there might be an alien in there.
• 17:36
  So their plan, the US Navy's plan for first contact is to
• 17:40
  take these four people who have no training in deep sea diving,
• 17:44
  taking them thousands of feet underwater with one Navy
• 17:48
  commander guy and two support staff, and that's it.
• 17:53
  That's the team to meet an alien for the first time.
• 17:56
  Yeah. This is also kind of reminded me
• 17:58
  of, is it Deep Impact or Armageddon?
• 18:01
  I want to say Armageddon is the which one?
• 18:04
  Has. Yeah.
• 18:04
  Armageddon. Yeah, Armageddon is Bruce
• 18:06
  Willis, where they send like regular oil rig drillers to go
• 18:10
  mine an asteroid, right? Yeah, same problem.
• 18:13
  Feels like that, yeah. In Armageddon, to my
• 18:16
  recollection, they try to spin it as like nobody else knows how
• 18:19
  to do the job. Like we would have an easier
• 18:21
  time training you guys to be astronauts than training an
• 18:23
  astronaut to drill things, I guess.
• 18:25
  Whereas in Sphere, nothing necessitates these four people
• 18:29
  physically going to the bottom of the ocean.
• 18:31
  Why would they not be brought in as consultants and then send a
• 18:35
  highly equipped team of like Navy divers to go inside the
• 18:39
  ship? Yeah, it sounds just like
• 18:41
  whoever's in charge of this whole operation, which just like
• 18:43
  I, I'm, I'm totally unqualified to be here.
• 18:46
  I've no idea what to do like. Yeah, which, again, that could
• 18:50
  be a plot point in the movie, but it's not addressed in a way
• 18:52
  that, like, really leans into how absurd that is.
• 18:55
  Like, why is they such minimal staff?
• 18:57
  I think there's one throwaway line about it, but they have a
• 18:59
  portable underwater habitat for the crew to use as a base of
• 19:04
  operations while they survey the ship.
• 19:06
  And I'm guessing it was just a size limitation.
• 19:08
  But like, why though? This is the discovery of alien
• 19:12
  intelligence on Earth that is supposedly been underwater for
• 19:15
  hundreds of years. But it's from the future, most
• 19:17
  likely. I don't know.
• 19:18
  So they send these people down. And again, they're like, hey,
• 19:21
  Dustin Hoffman, you're 50 years old, I think, and very, like,
• 19:24
  emotionally frail. I think we can put you in one of
• 19:27
  these pressure suits and give you 6 hours of training and
• 19:29
  you'll be fine. Yeah, yeah.
• 19:30
  You know what this needed? It needed like, like a human
• 19:33
  antagonist character who was like trying to like rush this
• 19:37
  whole operation so that he got credit for it, you know, to kind
• 19:40
  of give it some sense of reason behind why this is all happening
• 19:45
  as opposed to just nothing. You need momentum.
• 19:48
  You need a momentum behind this series of of actions where like
• 19:51
  Dustin Hoffman's like, Oh my God, this is what they want us
• 19:53
  here for. And they're like whisking them
• 19:55
  away like we have to move now. Something that is like maybe
• 19:59
  another country's navy's on the way, and they're like, we need
• 20:01
  America to get credit for talking to aliens or else the
• 20:04
  Ruskies are going to get here. The Ruskies.
• 20:08
  It boggles the imagination. And as soon as the movie's
• 20:10
  kicking off, you're just left with all these, like, logistical
• 20:12
  questions, which is a terrible state of mind to be in.
• 20:15
  Totally. And like, your main character,
• 20:16
  too, Dustin Hoffman, should be your, like, anchor in terms of
• 20:20
  like, voice of reason or like, you know, yeah, like you said,
• 20:24
  if something's pushing them all along down this path, you need
• 20:27
  somebody at the center, like your POV character to be like,
• 20:31
  to be like, the moral compass for everyone involved.
• 20:33
  But instead, he's just like, well, I don't want to get sued,
• 20:35
  so I guess I'll go in there. That's what he's.
• 20:38
  Just like I just hear so I don't get fined.
• 20:40
  That's the set up for. The movie, which is so dumb, but
• 20:44
  again, I think it's all like. I think the book probably
• 20:48
  handles this a lot better. The version of events that we
• 20:51
  get in the movie feels like they had a conclusion they wanted to
• 20:53
  reach and they had to reverse engineer the setup to get these
• 20:57
  people into this space. Because what happens is the 4
• 21:00
  characters and the one Navy guy and their two support staff go
• 21:04
  underwater to the habitat with their six hours of training.
• 21:07
  And then they go inside the ship And right away the whole thing
• 21:10
  starts to play out as almost like a sci-fi horror type setup
• 21:14
  because they go inside and they're like asking all these
• 21:16
  questions. They are wondering why the ship
• 21:18
  is completely intact if it's somehow crashed from outer
• 21:20
  space. And they theorize that it must
• 21:22
  be made of some really strong material, that it wasn't
• 21:24
  damaged. But then one of the people like,
• 21:27
  bangs on a wall with like a wrench and it like visibly marks
• 21:30
  it up. And they're like, well, that
• 21:31
  doesn't make sense. This looks like it's not any
• 21:33
  more sturdy than regular metals that we have.
• 21:36
  And then they go inside and they're like, well, if it's 300
• 21:38
  years old and it's full of aliens, why do I see human
• 21:41
  footprints in here? Like all these weird little
• 21:43
  beats of things that are not what they seem?
• 21:46
  And then what we ultimately find out by like 2025 minutes in is
• 21:51
  that the spaceship is not an alien spaceship, it's a human
• 21:54
  spaceship from the future. All right.
• 21:57
  Well, I'm intrigued. That's interesting.
• 21:59
  So we've changed premises. But again, the the specific
• 22:02
  examples are like the dumbest things, 'cause this is dumb.
• 22:05
  Jurassic Park. Like, I think the first firm
• 22:09
  confirmation they get is that one of the characters, like, is
• 22:12
  sitting on something and then he gets up and realizes that it's a
• 22:14
  sign that says like trash. Like he sits on a garbage can
• 22:18
  that's in English and he's like, oh.
• 22:21
  Yeah, I also like the scientific approach of smashing the thing
• 22:24
  with a wrench or whatever, like you said, Like check this out.
• 22:29
  Yeah, Nobody knows what they're doing.
• 22:31
  Like, Dustin Hoffman's performance in the movie is
• 22:33
  mostly that he's like, even though he's supposed to be the
• 22:35
  psychologist who kind of understands people's brains,
• 22:38
  he's always kind of anxious and asking all these questions.
• 22:40
  Like, they clearly don't know how anything works.
• 22:42
  They're walking on the sea floor to get to the thing, and he's
• 22:45
  just like, shouldn't my mask be fogging up?
• 22:47
  And they're like, yes, Mr. Hoffman, that's fine.
• 22:49
  And then he's like, what about the bubbles?
• 22:52
  He just doesn't understand any of this.
• 22:55
  This keeps like I'm just picturing.
• 22:56
  He keeps asking that helicopter pilot keeps going back to him.
• 22:59
  You know what's going on here. Do you?
• 23:00
  Can I get? My helicopter friend on.
• 23:06
  The phone, he's the real expert here.
• 23:07
  I want to talk to him. Yeah, I want to talk to Mr.
• 23:09
  Helly. So yeah, that whole thing is
• 23:12
  like a really lazy set up. And then ultimately they find
• 23:15
  like a human astronaut corpse inside the ship and they see
• 23:20
  that there's like, it starts to sound almost like a Star Trek
• 23:22
  episode for a minute, which is where my interest started to
• 23:24
  come back. Because they're like, well,
• 23:25
  we're looking at the ship's logs and the dates on the ship logs
• 23:28
  go all the way into like the twenty 40s, which because I
• 23:31
  guess by then we'll have hyper advanced spaceships that are
• 23:34
  unrecognizable to the human eye now.
• 23:36
  We're almost there. I think the next thing they find
• 23:39
  out is that they look at one of the captain's logs, essentially,
• 23:43
  and they see that the ship encountered some anomaly in
• 23:45
  space that somehow got the crew all killed and got their ship
• 23:49
  sent backwards in time, presumably through like a black
• 23:52
  hole. And that's why it's there.
• 23:54
  So that's why it's both futuristic, but it's been at the
• 23:56
  bottom of the ocean for a super long time.
• 23:59
  Yeah, like you said, we're we're getting into interesting sci-fi
• 24:03
  territory, which I'm not mad about, but I'm curious to see
• 24:06
  how they mess this up and make it uninteresting.
• 24:09
  The biggest problem is that the movie always stacks dramatic
• 24:13
  beats that are extremely redundant or unnecessary because
• 24:16
  the premise starts with there's an alien at the bottom of the
• 24:18
  ocean. The big twist in act one is Oh
• 24:21
  no this was a human spaceship. The twist 2 minutes later is
• 24:25
  there's an alien in the ship though.
• 24:27
  OK, see now how did we get there?
• 24:29
  Exactly. Town to the core of the ship and
• 24:33
  they determined that these future astronauts found a giant
• 24:37
  sphere that is some sort of living alien creature thingy.
• 24:41
  It's like a giant champagne gold sphere in the center of the ship
• 24:46
  that is completely featureless and perfectly round.
• 24:48
  That's where the title comes from.
• 24:52
  It's a metaphor or something. No, it's literal.
• 24:55
  It's a sphere, what you said. Do you know what's going on
• 25:02
  here? Yeah.
• 25:04
  Mr. Helicopter. So they find the sphere.
• 25:09
  They presume that something must have happened with this thing
• 25:13
  that maybe made the astronauts go crazy and kill each other.
• 25:16
  Pretty standard sci-fi once again.
• 25:18
  Now we're back at the original premise, but we just took a
• 25:20
  detour for no reason to get there.
• 25:22
  The next part of the movie is so confusing even to recollect
• 25:25
  because Sphere the film has a terrible sense of like pacing
• 25:30
  and timing. It legitimately uses chapter
• 25:33
  titles to transition between scenes and just skip
• 25:36
  indeterminate amounts of time. Oh, how many are there?
• 25:40
  How many of those do we get? Don't worry, I wrote every
• 25:42
  single one of them down. Oh, oh, oh, OK, titled director.
• 25:45
  Oh, OK, gotcha. These are title cards, like
• 25:48
  black text, white font title cards that originally I thought
• 25:52
  we're just location titles because the first one just says
• 25:55
  the surface right when the movie begins.
• 25:57
  And then they go down and we get one that says the deep.
• 26:00
  And then the third one is the spacecraft.
• 26:02
  And so I'm like, OK, there you go three titles.
• 26:05
  We're showing the descent. But then like a a few minutes
• 26:08
  later we get one that just says the analysis.
• 26:10
  And it's like, well, hold on, these aren't these aren't
• 26:14
  locations anymore. Now we're just doing stuff.
• 26:17
  Yeah, I'm starting to understand what Dustin Hoffman was saying
• 26:20
  about the film being unfinished, because this feels like they
• 26:24
  are, like you said as well. It's like they got into editing
• 26:26
  and they're just like, well, this is just missing pieces.
• 26:28
  So we just have to like, throw this in there, I guess.
• 26:31
  But it it also seems like it doesn't make things any more
• 26:33
  clear than it would have been otherwise.
• 26:36
  I would say it's less so because some of these scenes feel like
• 26:38
  they must happen immediately after each other, but the
• 26:41
  characters behave as if more time has passed then would make
• 26:43
  sense. And I think that as we get
• 26:45
  closer to the end of the movie, some of that is like intentional
• 26:48
  because it turns from regular sci-fi into more of like a
• 26:51
  psychological thriller. But it makes the movie feel
• 26:55
  really slow and plodding when we'll get to a beat like that
• 26:58
  and then just be like, anyway, we're back in the habitat and
• 27:00
  it's like, well, what was this sphere?
• 27:01
  Like, why are we back inside the underwater station?
• 27:05
  What about this sphere? And and then it just has to do
• 27:07
  stuff like that sometimes where it doesn't know how to get us to
• 27:10
  the next scene visually. So it's just like, anyway, put a
• 27:15
  title card up there. One of them just says the power.
• 27:19
  What is that? What is that supposed to like?
• 27:23
  One of them just says like insert title here.
• 27:25
  Yeah, insert title card here. There's like a dozen of them.
• 27:29
  They happen way too frequently. There's some that are only like
• 27:31
  2 or 3 minutes apart. Wow, that is I I have never seen
• 27:36
  that in a film before like that. That's I just saw the new
• 27:41
  Frankenstein film recently and that has like chapter titles but
• 27:44
  there's like I think 2. I think it just splits the movie
• 27:47
  into essentially 2 parts. Yeah, doing, like Act 123 doing,
• 27:51
  you know, two or three little title cards is fine.
• 27:53
  This movie, I think, has almost a dozen.
• 27:55
  And they start being less and less informative and seeming
• 27:58
  less and less motivated, but rather, they're just like, ways
• 28:01
  to stitch together scenes. Like, there's one later in the
• 28:03
  movie that's a scene between Dustin Hoffman and Sharon Stone
• 28:07
  where they're interacting in a space, and then the scene ends.
• 28:10
  And then the very next scene is Sharon Stone being like, hey,
• 28:12
  Dustin Hoffman, can you come over here?
• 28:14
  And it's like a different part of the space station, and an
• 28:17
  indeterminate amount of time has passed.
• 28:19
  And it feels like they were just about to have an argument, but
• 28:21
  then I guess that didn't happen. And now something else is
• 28:23
  happening. Like it's not intentionally
• 28:27
  jarring in the way that it wants to be.
• 28:28
  It wants to disorient the viewer because the mental state of
• 28:31
  these characters is deteriorating.
• 28:33
  But functionally, as a person watching the movie, you're just
• 28:35
  left feeling like you're seeing this out of.
• 28:37
  Order Yeah, I'm just picturing it's like cutting the characters
• 28:40
  off mid sentence like she's like, hey, doesn't I mean it's
• 28:42
  just like title card drops in the middle of like.
• 28:46
  Just the helicopter, it's. Just too much.
• 28:50
  So that's the problem with Sphere overall.
• 28:53
  I mean, like this premise, what I've gotten you through in
• 28:55
  recapping the story. Like we still haven't arrived at
• 28:57
  the premise of Sphere Wait. What hell?
• 29:00
  Yes. We're still not there.
• 29:02
  We're like 40 minutes in. We still don't know what the
• 29:05
  movie's about. Because what ultimately happens
• 29:08
  is that they go back to their ship and Samuel Jackson has this
• 29:13
  conversation with Dustin Hoffman where he's like, I think we're
• 29:15
  all going to die down here. And Justin Hoffman's like, what
• 29:18
  are you talking about? Why would that happen?
• 29:19
  And he's like, it's basic deduction.
• 29:21
  If these people went into space 50 years from now and
• 29:26
  encountered this dangerous, unknown life form that on their
• 29:29
  own ship's log says it's unidentified, and then it
• 29:31
  crashed back down here and we found it.
• 29:33
  There's no way we ever make it back up to the surface to tell
• 29:36
  anyone that this happened because otherwise, by the time
• 29:39
  the year 2040 came, there'd be a record of this.
• 29:41
  So he's subscribing to a specific interpretation of time
• 29:44
  travel, which is the time is all continuous.
• 29:46
  He's a mathematician, so it's like consistent with his
• 29:48
  character that he believes there's no way any of them
• 29:51
  survive or else these events would have never transpired in
• 29:55
  the future. Does that make sense?
• 29:56
  Yeah, and now we're back. He did the math.
• 29:58
  We're back into. Interesting.
• 29:59
  He did. The math sci-fi territory.
• 30:03
  OK. And once again, when Samuel
• 30:04
  Jackson is on screen, I buy the stupidity of the movie because I
• 30:07
  feel like it's internally consistent the way he talks
• 30:09
  about it. It's mostly how the rest of the
• 30:11
  movie plays out that just feels lazy and like half finished
• 30:14
  moving forward with the story. Samuel Jackson, I think his
• 30:17
  character's name is Harry, which comes up in a tertiary way.
• 30:20
  So Harry goes down to the sphere when everyone else is hanging
• 30:23
  out back on their spaceship. And once again this is treated
• 30:25
  as something very mundane. Even though that would involve
• 30:27
  him putting on a deep sea diving suit, hooking himself up, going
• 30:30
  out into the ocean, going to the ocean floor, getting inside the
• 30:33
  ship, and going all the way to the center.
• 30:35
  But they treat it as just like he went into the other room, he
• 30:37
  goes and visits the sphere. Hang on, time out.
• 30:39
  So he leaves. He leaves the ship and goes to
• 30:43
  the surface, he said. Not the surface.
• 30:45
  He goes to the spaceship that's on the water.
• 30:47
  From where? From there.
• 30:49
  Like underwater habitat that they're like, posted up in.
• 30:53
  Oh, OK. 'Cause I was just, I'm like, at
• 30:55
  that point, just go like disprove your own theory.
• 30:58
  Just go upstairs and be like, hey, there's an alien down here.
• 31:00
  Like, let's tell everybody like. Exactly.
• 31:03
  You know. So he goes in and goes up to the
• 31:07
  sphere when nobody else is around.
• 31:09
  And this creates a problem because there's this other
• 31:12
  ticking clock element that the movie decides to introduce and
• 31:15
  then immediately make redundant where the six person crew under
• 31:18
  the water gets a notification that there's a storm coming on
• 31:21
  the surface level. So they all need to either go
• 31:23
  back to the surface immediately or they're going to have to stay
• 31:27
  down there for the duration of this like monsoon storm that's
• 31:30
  going to last for several days. So they're like, well, I guess
• 31:32
  we all have to go back up now. And everybody's like, yeah, I
• 31:35
  guess that's OK. Like whatever, We don't, you
• 31:37
  know, we don't get to get stuck down here.
• 31:39
  But then Samuel Jackson goes off on his own, goes up to the
• 31:43
  sphere and they see on their little video camera that he
• 31:45
  like, disappears. And they're like, oh, Oh no, he
• 31:48
  went inside the sphere. Like that's no good.
• 31:51
  And so Dustin Hoffman goes to retrieve him.
• 31:53
  But then when he gets there, Jackson's body is just on the
• 31:56
  ground. So he just, we just cut to
• 31:58
  another chapter title. Then he's back on the ship.
• 32:00
  So we've introduced that we can't leave because there's a
• 32:03
  storm, but also we can't leave because Samuel Jackson got lost
• 32:07
  inside the sphere. And the Navy guy is like, well,
• 32:09
  I can't leave a civilian down here to die.
• 32:11
  I'll get I might be unaccountable.
• 32:13
  So it's like multiple redundant layers of like, we can't leave.
• 32:17
  We have to stay here. And then in the middle of that
• 32:20
  same sequence, they had previously said, like, please
• 32:24
  send down the like thing to bring us back to the surface.
• 32:27
  But then they're like, oh, the ship that was supposed to take
• 32:29
  us all back up got turned away by something like the storm
• 32:32
  hasn't arrived yet. But for some reason, our rescue
• 32:34
  boat never came to get us. And it's like, so that's three
• 32:38
  different reasons why we can't go back up to the surface.
• 32:41
  Yeah, yeah, this is this is. Hang on, I got to rewind a
• 32:44
  little bit here. So Sam Jackson went to where the
• 32:47
  sphere was and disappeared. But then they found his body and
• 32:51
  he was dead or. Not dead.
• 32:53
  That's The funny thing. And there's another element of
• 32:55
  the movie just being like Undramatic.
• 32:56
  It's like, Oh no, he's disappeared.
• 32:58
  Go get him. Dustin Hoffman.
• 32:59
  Hoffman goes down. He's right there.
• 33:01
  He's unconscious, but he's right there.
• 33:02
  And they're just like, oh, OK, let's bring him back to the
• 33:05
  habitat because I guess nothing interesting is going to happen
• 33:09
  in this movie. They're like Dodge Bullet there,
• 33:12
  almost had something. Bullet So then do you understand
• 33:17
  my point though, that like, why do we have to have three
• 33:19
  different, mostly redundant reasons for why they're stuck
• 33:22
  down in their little submersible instead of being able to go back
• 33:24
  home? Yeah, exactly.
• 33:26
  Again, this this I feel like could have been fixed by the
• 33:29
  same thing if you had like some ambitious kind of like
• 33:34
  antagonist character who is like, oh, we got to cover this
• 33:36
  whole thing up. You know, we can't let him come
• 33:38
  back up to the surface. People find out what we're doing
• 33:40
  or something like that. Like so it would just be one
• 33:42
  thing and would add like. One idea instead, from the
• 33:46
  movies perspective, it's there's a big storm and we lost Sam
• 33:50
  Jackson. Oh wait, no, we didn't.
• 33:51
  And the thing that was going to come get us left anyway.
• 33:54
  Also, come to think of it, they also have a submarine at the
• 33:57
  bottom that they can use to go up at any time.
• 33:59
  So I don't know. I don't know why any of those
• 34:01
  are problems. So they can go up to the and
• 34:04
  they have a sub they can take them up to the surface.
• 34:06
  They have a sub because that's another ticking clock element.
• 34:09
  It's like we have to upload recordings to a submarine
• 34:13
  attached to our like underwater house.
• 34:16
  And if we don't updated every 12 hours, it will leave without us
• 34:21
  because it's designed as a fail safe if we die down here so that
• 34:24
  the footage will surface and they'll be able to figure out
• 34:26
  what happened. So that's like a whole separate
• 34:29
  plot element that functionally doesn't really come into play in
• 34:32
  the way you would assume. That's overcomplicated.
• 34:35
  That's way too much. Overcomplicated as heck.
• 34:39
  Like this is confusing me and I saw the movie and so I'm sure
• 34:42
  that anybody who is not is like, what is he even talking about?
• 34:45
  But like, that's what this movie's problem is.
• 34:46
  It's disorientingly stupid. It sounds like a Weird Al song.
• 34:53
  It does. Anyway question SO.
• 34:56
  Far yeah, yeah, yeah. Like what?
• 34:58
  Let's no, you keep going. I want to you give me more
• 35:02
  'cause I'm like, I'm still trying to like visualize like
• 35:07
  what are they even trying to accomplish at this point?
• 35:08
  They're trying to still figure out what this is or what.
• 35:12
  Is there an alien on the ship that they're aware of like?
• 35:15
  They only have a small window where the goal is, let's go back
• 35:18
  to the surface to dodge the storm.
• 35:20
  In the span of a few minutes, we have the scene where Sam Jackson
• 35:22
  goes into the sphere and then pops back out and their rescue
• 35:25
  sub doesn't come to get them. At that point, they realized
• 35:28
  that the storm has now arrived, so they're stuck regardless and
• 35:31
  they're not trying to do anything at this point.
• 35:33
  They're just trying to like pass the time.
• 35:35
  That's good. Yeah, they're playing cards, but
• 35:38
  Sam Jackson is acting funny, as you would assume.
• 35:41
  He's acting real weird. They have all these scenes
• 35:43
  around this kitchen table that looks really similar to the one
• 35:45
  from the original Alien. Like the kind of like crew
• 35:48
  quarters kitchen. Yeah.
• 35:50
  This all sounds a lot like Alien.
• 35:52
  It's dumb alien though, as we said at the beginning.
• 35:55
  Not good. Alien with no forward momentum
• 35:57
  and no likable characters. But Sam Jackson's acting funny
• 36:00
  and you would think this would start to escalate because it's
• 36:02
  an alien intelligence. Maybe Sam Jackson's going to
• 36:05
  turn into like, an increasingly violent maniac.
• 36:08
  No, the movie probably goes on for 20 plus more minutes after
• 36:12
  Sam Jackson goes in the sphere before we even figure out what
• 36:14
  that did to him. Oh my gosh, really?
• 36:17
  Before it, yeah, I would say this is a two hour and 15 ish
• 36:21
  minute movie. I think around the hour 20 mark
• 36:25
  we start to get to a point where they're communicating with the
• 36:29
  alien intelligence. That's how long it takes to get
• 36:32
  to like what is still arguably not the premise of the movie.
• 36:36
  You keep saying that. What do you mean?
• 36:42
  Like it's supposed to be a mystery, but it doesn't play out
• 36:46
  like 1 because you don't know what you're trying to solve for.
• 36:48
  Like, you get this whole beat in the second act where you're two
• 36:51
  more mathematically minded folks, Liev Schreiber and Sam
• 36:53
  Jackson, see that There's all this weird mystery code showing
• 36:57
  up on their sensors and screens, which they reverse engineer into
• 37:00
  some sort of like language that they can communicate back with
• 37:03
  and turn it into English. So they're like, oh, the thing
• 37:06
  inside the sphere is trying to talk to us, I guess.
• 37:11
  And so that's like a section in the second act is where you have
• 37:14
  to communicate with this sort of childlike alien intelligence and
• 37:17
  figure out what it wants. Dustin Hoffman makes an
• 37:20
  observation that it seems to have emotions, which he finds
• 37:23
  concerning because he's like, well, if this thing can have
• 37:25
  emotions, it's been trapped underwater for 300 years, maybe
• 37:29
  it's going to get angry. Like that's one of his big lines
• 37:32
  before we randomly cut to a title cardigan.
• 37:36
  That's just funny. He's just like emotions.
• 37:39
  That's concerning. Don't like that I tell people to
• 37:42
  avoid these. Yeah, you should just just bury
• 37:45
  that as deep down as possible. Bury it way down at the bottom
• 37:47
  of the ocean, for example. So they start talking to that
• 37:51
  thing. And I do want to, I do want to
• 37:53
  zoom in on this scene because I found it really funny.
• 37:55
  Sam Jackson and Liev Schreiber, they're like your math guys, but
• 37:58
  the function they serve in the story is that they're there to
• 38:01
  bounce exposition off each other in a way that is not super
• 38:04
  obvious, that it's being dumbed down.
• 38:06
  Where they'll have one of them say something kind of smart
• 38:08
  sounding, and then the other one will try to simplify it for like
• 38:10
  the other characters. And that's how they get the
• 38:12
  exposition across. But like, the end results of
• 38:15
  that is like some of the worst, stupidest dialogue in a movie
• 38:18
  I've seen in quite some time. Just between the two of them.
• 38:21
  Between the two of them, just because of like, the writers of
• 38:24
  the film aren't smart enough to portray the characters being
• 38:28
  smart, you know what I mean? What do you have an example?
• 38:31
  What do? They I got a great example.
• 38:33
  I got a quote. I don't usually write down
• 38:35
  quotes. But there we go.
• 38:36
  They're trying to reverse engineer the code that the alien
• 38:39
  creature who's just named Jerry. By the way, the alien's name
• 38:42
  Jerry, it itself identifies as Jerry Hang.
• 38:46
  On it introduces itself as Jerry.
• 38:50
  Yeah, it says. Hi, I'm Jerry.
• 38:52
  That's No, it doesn't. The Alien.
• 38:53
  No, it does not. I'm.
• 38:56
  Turning the turn. To the podcast, all this is
• 39:00
  done. The movie Sphere is about an
• 39:03
  alien called Jerry. Except it isn't.
• 39:05
  We'll get to that. But they're talking to Jerry and
• 39:06
  they're trying to figure out the code, to figure out like how
• 39:09
  they could translate the numbers into something they can
• 39:11
  understand. And at one point Sam Jackson
• 39:14
  says that it's communicating a sequence of code base that's
• 39:18
  like a spherical cipher. So rather like some sort of
• 39:23
  three-dimensional number letter code.
• 39:25
  And Lieb Schreiber's response is he's like, oh, so like a like a
• 39:30
  keyboard language quote, but reflected in an orb spherically
• 39:35
  a keyboard, but spherical. Take a keyboard, wrap it around
• 39:39
  a sphere. Like he literally says three
• 39:42
  times in a row. The thing that still doesn't
• 39:44
  make sense? Is that the act?
• 39:47
  That's the quote. That's the actual dialogue from
• 39:49
  the film. Him.
• 39:50
  Saying the three different iterations on that sentence that
• 39:53
  don't clarify anything or is a quote from the movie.
• 39:57
  Just want him to keep going just like OK so picture a keyboard
• 40:00
  but also but also like you know a circle but like that but like
• 40:04
  3 dimensional. Like it's a keyboard dimension.
• 40:07
  So like when Mario went 3D? That's Mario 64, right?
• 40:11
  Just pulls up like like PowerPoint presentation, like
• 40:15
  here we go. That is that's upsetting.
• 40:18
  That's just yes. It's upsetting.
• 40:20
  This movie's upsetting. Like, it's not.
• 40:22
  The dialogue is dumb, but in a way that's not funny.
• 40:24
  It's just like, bafflingly stupid.
• 40:27
  This this is the first time on this show where I like like
• 40:32
  you're trying to explain the plot of this film to me and I
• 40:36
  just can't can't wrap my head around it.
• 40:39
  Like I can't. I don't understand what this
• 40:42
  what's happening here? OK, I think I know how to help.
• 40:45
  So like you take a keyboard. This might this might sound
• 40:51
  crazy but. Anyway, we've gotten so far into
• 40:55
  this, we're about as far into this recording as the movie
• 40:59
  gets. Before Sam Jackson even goes
• 41:00
  inside the sphere. That's how long it takes for
• 41:02
  anything to happen. The actual, actual premise of
• 41:07
  Sphere, which we get when the third act begins, is that anyone
• 41:12
  who my voice correct? Anyone who anyone who goes
• 41:17
  inside the sphere and pops right back out again gains the
• 41:20
  ability, unbeknownst to them, that they can manifest their
• 41:24
  dreams and subconscious into reality.
• 41:28
  What the hell? Yeah, what's so guess what,
• 41:32
  Jerry? The alien who communicated via
• 41:35
  numbers on a computer was a figment of Sam Jackson's
• 41:39
  imagination. It became real that like became.
• 41:44
  Real. Physical.
• 41:45
  That's not now. We're this isn't even science
• 41:48
  fiction anymore. This is just like this is magic
• 41:51
  now. This is science.
• 41:53
  Failure is what it is. So also also 'cause I love the
• 41:58
  details. Guess how Dustin Hoppin figures
• 41:59
  out this reveal? He because things have gone
• 42:03
  poorly in the in the parts of the movie I've skipped, several
• 42:06
  people have died. Queen Latifah was here.
• 42:07
  She's dead. When was she in the movie?
• 42:13
  I refuse to elaborate. Was one of the support staff who
• 42:18
  got killed by jellyfish? Jellyfish.
• 42:21
  You didn't mention any jellyfish.
• 42:24
  We would be here all day if I tried to actually recount the
• 42:26
  plot of Sphere in order. It takes as long as the movie.
• 42:29
  Takes just keep going. Just keep going, yeah?
• 42:31
  So the reason that Dustin figures out after Queen Latifah
• 42:35
  gets killed by the jellyfish and another guy gets cut in half
• 42:39
  with a door doesn't often goes back and looks at the cipher
• 42:43
  code that they made and says out loud because there's no one for
• 42:46
  him to talk to. Oh, they translated this wrong.
• 42:48
  And he figures out that the two math whizzes.
• 42:51
  The psychologist figures out that the two math whizzes
• 42:53
  translated the numbers wrong. He out masked them and realizes
• 42:57
  that they mistranslated Jerry for Harry, which is Sam
• 43:02
  Jackson's name. So he's like, oh, he wasn't
• 43:04
  saying my name's Jerry. He was saying my name's Harry.
• 43:09
  God. OK, wait, but he figures this
• 43:13
  out mathematically. How does he figure this out
• 43:16
  mathematically? That's my question.
• 43:17
  Why would the not? Didn't carry the 2.
• 43:20
  Why would the not math guy be able to look at the notes from
• 43:22
  the two math geniuses and figure out that they were wrong, and
• 43:25
  also figure out how to do it correctly?
• 43:27
  Yeah, also like Harry and Jerry, they must have missed that's.
• 43:32
  Multiple letters. Multiple letters off.
• 43:34
  Also, I'm pretty sure the alien at some point uses the word the
• 43:38
  in its speech, which would have shown up incorrectly if the
• 43:40
  letters H&E were being mistranslated.
• 43:43
  Yeah, yeah. No, this makes zero sense.
• 43:46
  Like even in in the internal logic of the film, this doesn't
• 43:50
  make sense. It would have to be like I boom
• 43:52
  Jerry, you know, like just all of the letters are wrong.
• 43:54
  You did what? Jerry, please.
• 43:59
  So that's the problem with Sphere.
• 44:00
  It gets that far in before eventually, eventually, like an
• 44:04
  hour and 20 minutes in, we're left with three characters.
• 44:07
  Dustin Hoffman's alive. Sharon Stone Suicide Squad
• 44:10
  Sharon Stone is alive. I would advise not getting
• 44:12
  killed by her. Samuel Jackson is alive and we
• 44:15
  realize that Sam Jackson is manifesting his dreams
• 44:18
  unintentionally and creating evil jellyfish and a giant squid
• 44:22
  monster and a computer and the. Computer.
• 44:26
  Well, the computer. The Jerry on the computer with
• 44:28
  him. Yeah, yeah.
• 44:30
  OK. Yeah, of course.
• 44:32
  Did they see did wait wait, did they see this like the audience?
• 44:36
  Do we see this Jerry Harry alien like?
• 44:39
  Jerry's just text on a screen. Of course, yeah.
• 44:43
  Anyway, yeah. That would be interesting.
• 44:48
  An alien on screen, Someone who affected designed one.
• 44:52
  No, we just get a sphere and then a computer monitor.
• 44:55
  Because the movie is secretly, after all this time and all
• 44:58
  these twists is really about the dangers of human imagination.
• 45:03
  That's what the movie's about. Emotions are bad.
• 45:05
  Imagination is bad. Emotion is bad, so eventually
• 45:08
  the final act of the movie is when things are supposed to go
• 45:11
  full Heart of Darkness, which they teed up.
• 45:13
  Everyone's losing their minds and we're supposed to not be
• 45:15
  sure who of the three characters has entered the sphere, and thus
• 45:19
  who also has this power to accidentally manifest what is
• 45:23
  mostly just things they're afraid of.
• 45:25
  Like that's why this keeps happening.
• 45:26
  They're manifesting fears as real dangers that have killed
• 45:30
  several people. So now we're because at the
• 45:32
  beginning of the movie when you were talking about like, oh, we
• 45:35
  found this thing and landed in the ocean where it was, it was
• 45:37
  kind of reminding me of the thing.
• 45:38
  And now it feels like we're back to the thing again, where it's
• 45:41
  like, you know, so they're just ripping off another really good
• 45:45
  movie for this one. Yeah, so it's dumb thing.
• 45:48
  Dumb Jurassic Park. Yeah, it's just.
• 45:51
  The part of the end is maybe the worst because this is where in
• 45:54
  editing, they're trying to sell that this is, like,
• 45:56
  disorienting, and they're not sure what's real.
• 45:58
  So they just try to, like, cut around scenes a lot and do like,
• 46:02
  intentionally discombobulating edits.
• 46:04
  But like, the movie's already so bad that they don't have the
• 46:06
  craft to get away with that. So it just gets worse and worse.
• 46:10
  And at the end of the movie, guess what?
• 46:13
  All three of the remaining characters have been in the
• 46:15
  sphere. We just only saw one of them.
• 46:17
  Well, how did they get there? Don't they actually have to go
• 46:20
  to the sphere to get put in? Hoffman, if you'll recall in
• 46:24
  this very easy to follow plot, Don't recall, Dustin Hoffman was
• 46:28
  the one who recovered Sam Jackson's body from next to the
• 46:32
  sphere. Oh, so he got feared when he did
• 46:34
  that? Same scene, we get a visual cue
• 46:37
  which tells you immediately that Dustin Hoffman has also been
• 46:40
  inside the sphere. They expect me not to notice
• 46:42
  that the exact same visual cue appears to indicate he did the
• 46:45
  same thing, but then it's like a reveal later that he was in
• 46:47
  there. The only thing that's a surprise
• 46:49
  is that Sharon Stone also went in there and then at the end
• 46:52
  they realized that the enemy the whole time has been themselves
• 46:55
  and they just need to fight to shake off the illusions long
• 46:58
  enough to get to the sub and escape back to the surface
• 47:02
  before the dynamite that Sharon Sohn set all around the alien
• 47:06
  ship. Blows up and destroys
• 47:07
  everything. Is this?
• 47:11
  Is this imaginary dynamite or alien space logic dynamite like?
• 47:17
  It was real dynamite that Sharon Stone triggered by accident
• 47:20
  after knowing how the powers worked because her character.
• 47:25
  Like part of the plot of the movie is that Sharon Stone's
• 47:27
  character has like a history of mental issues and was like
• 47:30
  briefly dealing with like self harm and was trying to like
• 47:34
  enter life and stuff. So she straight up says out
• 47:36
  loud. I think I triggered the dynamite
• 47:38
  by accident because I secretly want to die.
• 47:42
  OK, but just so the dynamite was there from the beginning, this
• 47:48
  was not she. Put real dynamite out in the
• 47:51
  third act, but she triggered it by accident because she imagined
• 47:54
  it going off. OK, all right.
• 47:58
  I don't want to be here anymore so.
• 48:01
  Can I, can I just cut this? Can we just start the show?
• 48:04
  It's like, so anyway, we have one movie to talk about.
• 48:09
  No, no, no. This is this is this fear has
• 48:12
  just caught. I've lost my composure, but I'm
• 48:13
  back. Let's.
• 48:18
  Like, you know, you sound, nothing about this is like,
• 48:20
  funny because it's too confusing to be funny.
• 48:23
  It's just like like. Weirdly upsetting.
• 48:26
  There's just so many layers to this.
• 48:30
  There's so many layers to this, like and then like you add in
• 48:33
  the like editing choices with like the title car.
• 48:36
  Like I'm just imagining like you didn't see Sharon Stone go into
• 48:40
  the sphere because there was a title card in the way and just
• 48:44
  talking about something else. Like it was just somebody's like
• 48:46
  grocery list, like up on screen. It's just.
• 48:49
  Like, none of this drama is effective because really the
• 48:52
  movie is supposed to be about interpersonal drama between the
• 48:55
  characters trapped at the bottom of the ocean whose fears and
• 49:00
  repressed feelings are coming out in ways they can't control.
• 49:02
  But that doesn't become the premise until 3/4 of the way
• 49:06
  into the movie. Where?
• 49:08
  Did the sphere come from? So there was a these guys went
• 49:13
  from the future 2040, they went to space and found the sphere
• 49:18
  out there and then they didn't intentionally bring it back to
• 49:23
  Earth and they went through a black hole.
• 49:26
  Found the sphere, They all died because they all got the same
• 49:29
  sphere powers and slowly turned paranoid and killed each other,
• 49:34
  and then I think their ship drifted into a black hole that
• 49:36
  sent it cratering into the earth that somehow left no visible
• 49:40
  record that scientists would find until hundreds of years
• 49:42
  later. A.
• 49:43
  Black hole that sent them into the earth in the past as well.
• 49:48
  That's got to be pretty funny. You know, Like, imagine you go
• 49:50
  out into the depths of the universe from Earth, go through
• 49:53
  a black hole, a RIP in space and time that could send you
• 49:57
  theoretically anywhere according to modern science, and you enter
• 49:59
  back where you started. Back where you started, but but
• 50:03
  like even further back than where you started.
• 50:05
  Yeah, like that's got to feel funny.
• 50:07
  You know, like you're on a cross country road trip and you're
• 50:10
  like, we're starting California, we're going to New York, you
• 50:12
  take a wrong turn and you just like 6 weeks later end up in
• 50:16
  California. Wait a minute.
• 50:20
  Like, but they were already dead at that point.
• 50:23
  They were presumably already dead because they had all gone
• 50:26
  insane and killed each other. OK.
• 50:31
  And we never so we don't know where the sphere came from
• 50:35
  technically is this. No, it's just like an idea, man.
• 50:38
  Yeah, it's like an idea. It's.
• 50:40
  Like a metaphor. Like I said, it's you.
• 50:41
  Know it's a metaphor but also a literal sphere.
• 50:44
  So guess what the end of the movie is?
• 50:46
  I can't. I couldn't tell.
• 50:47
  You, I know you can't. That's a quick question.
• 50:49
  So eventually they overcome the power of their delusions.
• 50:52
  Our three main characters, the screenwriters, unfortunately did
• 50:55
  not. Then we get them back to the
• 50:58
  surface. We get one last title card that
• 51:00
  says decompression chamber day one.
• 51:02
  There is no day 2. We just get day one when you
• 51:05
  could have just written it as decompression chamber.
• 51:08
  And then there's a scene at the end where they're in a waiting
• 51:10
  room and they're like, OK, the bad guys, we blew up the
• 51:14
  spaceship. We think, I think the characters
• 51:16
  at this point believe they blew up the sphere itself.
• 51:19
  But Sharon Stone says we all still have the power, right?
• 51:22
  And they all go, yeah, we definitely all still have the
• 51:24
  power, which I don't know why you would assume that if you
• 51:26
  blew up the source of the power. But anyway, they're like, well,
• 51:30
  the Navy's going to come in here.
• 51:32
  How come to Sam Jackson's point, we escaped.
• 51:35
  He correctly postulated that we all should have died down there
• 51:38
  or else the information that we know would become public and the
• 51:41
  future would never occur. And so Sam Jackson, his big math
• 51:44
  solution, he's like, I know what to do.
• 51:47
  They're never going to believe any of what we said, so we need
• 51:50
  to use the power of the sphere at the same time to forget
• 51:55
  everything we saw down there and thus not know that we have the
• 51:59
  power. What?
• 52:01
  Why? Why would?
• 52:03
  Why would you? Why?
• 52:04
  You didn't know you had the power for 90% of the movies.
• 52:09
  Yeah, or just like, don't tell them.
• 52:13
  And like, you have superpowers now.
• 52:15
  Like you can literally warp reality to your will and and you
• 52:20
  decide to just forget about it. That whole scene plays out as if
• 52:25
  they're grappling with the weight of the power that they've
• 52:28
  inherited, even though at no point have they ever had, like,
• 52:31
  a handle on how to use it. It's only ever tried to kill
• 52:34
  them, which is Dustin Hoffman's whole like monologue at the end.
• 52:37
  He's like, we're some of the smartest people of our age, and
• 52:40
  when given this power, we just resort to the most like
• 52:43
  paranoid, pathetic delusions and almost got each other killed.
• 52:47
  We're not ready for this, but let's not use it to like solve
• 52:50
  world hunger on the way out. Let's just forget we have it and
• 52:53
  then it will effectively disappear.
• 52:56
  Even though the whole problem throughout most of the movie was
• 52:59
  that we all had the power and we didn't know about it.
• 53:01
  So they do this, they all hold hands and they forget.
• 53:04
  And then the sphere which was, which did not die, flies into
• 53:09
  space, and that's it. It flies itself, Jerry flies it
• 53:14
  into space. Like what?
• 53:16
  How? Is it Jerry?
• 53:16
  The sphere flies itself away into space.
• 53:19
  And then we talk about endings to movies a lot.
• 53:22
  We have a shot of it, like disappearing into the stars, and
• 53:26
  then we sort of dissolve to a frame of the three characters
• 53:29
  just kind of still sitting in the waiting room not doing
• 53:31
  anything. And then we dissolve back to
• 53:34
  outer space one more time. And then we hit credits, which
• 53:37
  just feels like one last editing trip up.
• 53:40
  I'm like, what was that? There was nothing significant
• 53:42
  about that scene other than reminding us, yeah, they're down
• 53:45
  there. They were just like, literally
• 53:47
  like on their way, like running out the door trying to edit this
• 53:50
  film to get it to theaters like that.
• 53:53
  That makes no dance. That makes negative sense.
• 53:59
  The whole movie doesn't make sense.
• 54:01
  It made me extremely frustrated and we've had to talk about it
• 54:04
  for an hour just to get through the plot.
• 54:08
  Yeah, yeah, that is. I mean, I'm all for convoluted,
• 54:15
  like science fiction premises, but like, this one feels like on
• 54:21
  top of being like needlessly confusing and also like had
• 54:25
  nothing to say or didn't know what it wanted to say or or
• 54:29
  whatever it intended, got lost in translation and like the
• 54:34
  like, final product of the film somehow.
• 54:36
  So you're just left with like this mess, just like a confusing
• 54:41
  mess. Yeah, Sphere is so unequivocally
• 54:46
  the worst movie that's been profiled on this show.
• 54:48
  Like, it's not even close. It has no redeeming qualities.
• 54:55
  It's not funny bad. It's not I'd watch it on a lazy
• 55:00
  Sunday bad. I don't ever want to see this
• 55:01
  movie again. I think maybe what happened is
• 55:04
  that you and I watched this as kids for 20 minutes and we
• 55:07
  realized it was so bad that the only way to escape that
• 55:09
  knowledge was to forget that we had ever seen.
• 55:14
  It oh or you did and I didn't. I forgot to forget so.
• 55:17
  That was the other thing. Why was the twist at the end of
• 55:19
  the movie not that one of them didn't choose to forget?
• 55:21
  Like why wouldn't you have Sam Jackson do like a little wink
• 55:24
  like I remember. You know, I didn't forget.
• 55:29
  I didn't forget anything. And they're like, forget about
• 55:31
  what? And he's like, don't worry about
• 55:33
  it. And then a title card pops up
• 55:34
  that says he remembers. How did the sphere leave?
• 55:40
  How did the sphere? Flow away.
• 55:43
  But how was it sentient the whole time?
• 55:45
  Like was it trying to? Because like, it didn't seem
• 55:50
  from everything else he said. Like it had any.
• 55:52
  Intentions behind. Yeah, like.
• 55:55
  Look, the sphere is not taking questions at this time, OK?
• 55:58
  We can forward any remaining questions and the sphere will
• 56:00
  follow up with you at its early as can be.
• 56:03
  It's just Poochie died on the way back to his planet.
• 56:10
  Yeah, yeah, that would have been great if it happened like, way
• 56:12
  earlier into the movie. Sphere is too long.
• 56:16
  It's annoying. Literally the only thing I could
• 56:18
  say is that the presentation is mostly actually pretty good,
• 56:21
  like better than you would assume.
• 56:22
  Like the music is decent although misused the sets and
• 56:26
  the like. Computer effects for 1998 are
• 56:28
  like really really good. It is a polished visual
• 56:32
  production and nothing else. All right.
• 56:35
  Well, that's something better there.
• 56:36
  You know, pretty good. Sounds pretty good is what
• 56:38
  you're saying. That's pretty good.
• 56:40
  I mean, I'd put it on. I can't remember what happens in
• 56:43
  it, so that must be a. Reason for that?
• 56:44
  Yeah, it must be some reason. Anyway, there was.
• 56:48
  I mean, I guess we didn't do a lot of reflecting so much as
• 56:51
  just recapping, but I'm over it. I'm over sphere.
• 56:53
  I have nothing. Yeah, I have a headache that's a
• 56:55
  commercial. That's a commercial.
• 57:06
  OK, coming back from the other side of an intermission, Frank,
• 57:10
  I don't think any break is long enough.
• 57:12
  I'm completely mentally wiped from trying to talk about Sphere
• 57:15
  because it doesn't make any sense.
• 57:16
  Could you perhaps regale me with just some just some nice old
• 57:19
  World War Two stories? I mean, are there nice old World
• 57:27
  War Two stories? No, there's no World War Two
• 57:28
  stories. That are nice.
• 57:29
  That's the problem. We moved from a stupid idiot
• 57:34
  sci-fi movie to what is probably a way too serious film about
• 57:38
  World War 2 that I only picked for you to watch because we
• 57:41
  haven't done any World War 2 movies and that felt like ground
• 57:44
  we should cover. Did it?
• 57:47
  Did it feel like ground we should cover?
• 57:50
  You know what this show is missing?
• 57:53
  In my defense, there are different types of war films.
• 57:56
  Some are like Saving Private Ryan, which are like horribly
• 57:59
  miser or like the what's the oh God the Spielberg one.
• 58:02
  I'm forgetting what it's called Star Wars, Star Wars now, the
• 58:09
  one, the sad 1, whatever Schindler's List there it is sad
• 58:14
  1. So like there's some that are
• 58:17
  like horribly brutal and are, you know, trying to be anti war
• 58:19
  movies. And then there's some that are
• 58:21
  like kind of just warmer war films.
• 58:26
  I've seen a couple like that. They're like, they're not taking
• 58:28
  it lightly, but they're more like human perseverance stories.
• 58:32
  And I just thought maybe this, what's it?
• 58:34
  Memphis Belle, that That's the title, right?
• 58:36
  Memphis Belle and and you already hit on a point that I
• 58:39
  wanted to get into with this movie with like anti war movies
• 58:45
  because it's been said before. I don't know if you and I have
• 58:48
  talked about it, but like there's like a discussion in the
• 58:52
  sense that there is no anti war movie because like, like you
• 58:57
  were saying. And and the territory this one
• 58:59
  kind of gets into is when it focuses on like almost trying to
• 59:03
  put a positive spin on war and like World War 2, you know, it's
• 59:08
  like, look at the camaraderie between these characters, you
• 59:12
  know, and then it kind of makes it seem like it's supposed to be
• 59:15
  this like, good thing that happened when they succeed in
• 59:19
  their mission and they're like, yeah, we killed people.
• 59:21
  All right, Like well at. Least we can go to sleep knowing
• 59:25
  that World War 2 ended very neatly and there were no lasting
• 59:29
  ramifications to the ideologies involved.
• 59:31
  And it's all just behind us now. You know it's.
• 59:34
  All in the past. It was fine then and.
• 59:36
  It's. Fine, now that's the tag line
• 59:41
  for the movie. Yeah, I feel like it's a type of
• 59:46
  movie loved by old dudes who themselves were born like
• 59:52
  afterwards, you know? Well, but see, that is kind of
• 59:56
  where the whole no anti war movie comes in because it's like
• 59:59
  you get there's there's people that like love World War 2
• 1:00:02
  memorabilia or like civil war stuff.
• 1:00:05
  And it's like these, these are like real brutal conflicts that
• 1:00:07
  like through films and other media or what have you, you get
• 1:00:11
  far enough away from them that people then like.
• 1:00:13
  Reminisce about them and like, kind of romanticize them in a
• 1:00:17
  way. And then in a sense, that sort
• 1:00:19
  of perpetuates the idea of war to people because it's like
• 1:00:25
  people admire what they're seeing in these like images and
• 1:00:30
  these stories. Yeah, it's hard to separate
• 1:00:33
  because they're trying, you know, I don't mind trying to
• 1:00:36
  highlight that ultimately there's a lot of brave people
• 1:00:40
  involved in fighting in any sort of conflict.
• 1:00:43
  But it's like the context for it is, I mean, so many wars have
• 1:00:49
  been like people were drafted, they had no desire to be there.
• 1:00:52
  There's nothing fun for anybody who was actually involved.
• 1:00:55
  So yeah, I guess this is an irresponsible choice, really.
• 1:00:58
  But why don't we talk about Memphis Belle?
• 1:01:00
  No, I, I don't want to. Yeah, no, no, I don't want to
• 1:01:02
  drag you too much for actually picking this, this movie.
• 1:01:05
  It's just this is this is watching it.
• 1:01:07
  These are like kind of the the thoughts that came to mind
• 1:01:09
  though, because you're right, it's something we haven't we
• 1:01:11
  haven't talked about or touched on on on the show before.
• 1:01:13
  But to get into this movie to start off, this might be a first
• 1:01:18
  for the show. This is a repeat director.
• 1:01:21
  This film was directed by Michael.
• 1:01:23
  Yeah, Michael Caton Jones, who was the director of The Jackal.
• 1:01:27
  So Oh. Really.
• 1:01:28
  Oh, see, we're in good hands, all right.
• 1:01:31
  We are in 5 out of 10 hands everybody. 5 out of 10 hands
• 1:01:36
  agree. All left say that this is a good
• 1:01:41
  idea. It's too political, so.
• 1:01:48
  Oh no, yeah, let's let's get off the political soapbox and go
• 1:01:53
  back to talking about World War. 2 So anyway, this movie was
• 1:02:00
  roughly inspired or like an adaptation of a World War 2
• 1:02:07
  documentary. It was a documentary film
• 1:02:11
  released in 1944 called The Memphis Belle.
• 1:02:17
  Yeah, it's a subtitle. It's a Story of a Flying
• 1:02:18
  Fortress is the full title of the documentary.
• 1:02:21
  That's like a Studio Ghibli movie.
• 1:02:23
  Yeah, yeah. But not as fun, I imagine.
• 1:02:27
  Not as fun. Not a lot of.
• 1:02:31
  Whimsy. Where's the whimsy?
• 1:02:33
  But the over there. Hold on.
• 1:02:37
  Did you see it? Watch this footage and see if
• 1:02:41
  you can point out the whimsy. Yeah.
• 1:02:44
  Just ignore the. Just ignore the.
• 1:02:46
  Don't look at the. Don't look at what's on the
• 1:02:48
  screen. Just.
• 1:02:50
  Just think about it. But but that but so that
• 1:02:53
  documentary was released in 1944 and the Memphis Belle was a real
• 1:02:59
  like World War 2 bomber, which that's what this that that's the
• 1:03:02
  premise of this movie. It's about the crew of a of a
• 1:03:05
  World War 2 bomber plane. OK, and like it flew.
• 1:03:10
  It's like last mission in 1943. And then that documentary was
• 1:03:14
  released the following year 'cause it was, it was like
• 1:03:17
  essentially documentary footage of the war.
• 1:03:19
  And so then this is just like a fictional adaptation of that
• 1:03:22
  whole thing. But to get into the pros of the
• 1:03:27
  film, they're all they're all front loaded.
• 1:03:30
  Like this all the good parts are at the beginning are.
• 1:03:35
  All at the beginning it's it's what what was I think it was
• 1:03:39
  deep cover where I had the exact opposite experience, where it
• 1:03:42
  was like the first act of the film.
• 1:03:44
  I was just not at all with it. But by the end I was like, yeah,
• 1:03:47
  deep cover, all right. Like, but with this one, I was
• 1:03:53
  like, damn, you know what we may have stumbled on like this is
• 1:03:57
  like some real classy kind of just artistic big budget
• 1:04:02
  filmmaking happening here. You know, like because tied into
• 1:04:05
  the documentary thing, I mean, there there's just an impressive
• 1:04:07
  amount of like B roll like to kind of set the mood in the
• 1:04:11
  scene at the beginning of the film because the plot of the
• 1:04:14
  film is is very simple. It's just about this the crew of
• 1:04:17
  this World War 2 bomber and this is like their final mission.
• 1:04:21
  It's like they have flown 24 successful missions.
• 1:04:25
  And if they finish this last mission, then they get to go
• 1:04:27
  home. Is that a thing?
• 1:04:29
  You get to leave. The war is not over.
• 1:04:31
  But if they've done enough, you guys have filled out your punch
• 1:04:35
  card, you're going home. You get a free sandwich.
• 1:04:38
  A free sandwich, OK. I mean, that might be a real
• 1:04:42
  thing, but that is kind of funny to imagine.
• 1:04:45
  That's the thing. I don't know.
• 1:04:46
  So it's like this is a heavily fictionalized, like none of this
• 1:04:50
  is like based on reality and in the sense of like 1:00 to 1:00,
• 1:04:54
  but it, it is based on like, you know, they had this footage from
• 1:04:57
  the documentary. And so the film looks like very
• 1:05:00
  convincing when you're watching it.
• 1:05:02
  It, it feels so like real and lived in like the space because
• 1:05:06
  of the production design and the costumes and like an impressive
• 1:05:09
  amount of extras. And they have, you know, they
• 1:05:11
  actually went out and had to find these sort of vintage
• 1:05:15
  planes. I, I think they used some of the
• 1:05:17
  last ones in existence for the filming of the movie.
• 1:05:22
  And what's really interesting about that is like, and again,
• 1:05:26
  this is, this is like the first like 5 to 10 minutes of the
• 1:05:29
  movie. And it really like drew me in is
• 1:05:30
  like, you know, the first act all kind of takes place on the,
• 1:05:34
  on this like Air Force Base where all our main characters
• 1:05:37
  are. And the beginning of the film is
• 1:05:39
  like, you know, these other planes are like returning from
• 1:05:44
  like a mission. So they're all like kind of
• 1:05:45
  flying in one by one. And they're like counting them.
• 1:05:47
  They're like how many planes, you know, made it back, how many
• 1:05:49
  were shot down or whatever. And then there's one coming in
• 1:05:52
  that's like, clearly, like, you know, damaged.
• 1:05:55
  And it's like, it's only got like one wheel down and it tries
• 1:05:58
  to like land with just one wheel, like kind of do like a
• 1:06:03
  crash landing. And like visually it's, it's
• 1:06:07
  super impressive because like they blew that plane up.
• 1:06:10
  Like, wow, this plane comes in and it looks like it was shot
• 1:06:15
  practically like as as much as possible.
• 1:06:18
  You know, I think it's like, it's kind of you see it like
• 1:06:21
  come in for this like shaky landing on like one wheel.
• 1:06:25
  And then there's, there's obviously like a few cuts and
• 1:06:27
  like reactions from the other characters.
• 1:06:29
  And then we just get a shot of the plane just erupting.
• 1:06:32
  And I was like, wow, that is impressive.
• 1:06:35
  Like production design, like production value, I should say.
• 1:06:40
  That, that is sort of what I was getting at in picking a movie
• 1:06:43
  like this is like, I know there's a lot of nuance in
• 1:06:46
  making a film about a war or making a film in, in any sort of
• 1:06:50
  coordination with your country's government in in like how things
• 1:06:52
  are depicted. It's obviously going to be very
• 1:06:54
  softened based on whose perspective it's from, but a lot
• 1:06:57
  of talented film makers have been attached to projects like
• 1:07:00
  these, and a lot of them do have a lot of money behind them.
• 1:07:02
  So like, that's what I thought would be curious about this.
• 1:07:04
  Like is things like that just like a massive, impressive
• 1:07:07
  technical spectacle for something like that at the
• 1:07:10
  beginning. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:07:12
  But again, super front loaded, like you get all that at the
• 1:07:16
  beginning and the beginning of the film really feels like it's,
• 1:07:20
  it's building so much tension. You know, it's like you're
• 1:07:24
  getting to know your main characters.
• 1:07:26
  It's a lot of people you would recognize, like Sean Astin is in
• 1:07:29
  it, which I didn't know going in.
• 1:07:32
  Billy Zane, Harry Connick, Junior, this is his first role.
• 1:07:36
  He's super young in this movie. A lot of like 90 specific
• 1:07:40
  actors, like people whose careers didn't even make it
• 1:07:42
  past, you know? Yeah, yes, exactly.
• 1:07:46
  Like, but it's like, it's like, even if you don't know these
• 1:07:48
  actors names, if you're familiar with any films from this era,
• 1:07:51
  you'd be like, oh, it's that guy.
• 1:07:52
  Yeah, exactly. It's a lot of there's that guy.
• 1:07:54
  Yeah, John Lithgow, like you said, Eric Stoltz.
• 1:07:59
  I don't know if I said that. I don't know if I said that in
• 1:08:01
  this episode, but Eric Stoltz was the guy who originally was
• 1:08:04
  cast to be in Back to the Future.
• 1:08:06
  So there's some like, test footage of like early scenes
• 1:08:08
  with just a different Marty McFly.
• 1:08:10
  And I think they just kicked him out because they thought he
• 1:08:11
  didn't fit. I don't blame him.
• 1:08:13
  Like he's he, he's, he's totally fine in this movie.
• 1:08:17
  But like there's some actors where it's like you kind of if
• 1:08:21
  it's like the first role you've ever seen them in or something,
• 1:08:23
  and then you see him in something else, you kind of
• 1:08:25
  associate them too heavily with like a different role maybe.
• 1:08:28
  Yeah. And this guy, he was in Pulp
• 1:08:32
  Fiction, like the scene where John Travolta brings Uma Thurman
• 1:08:38
  'cause she's like Oded and he brings him to like his like drug
• 1:08:43
  dealer's house or something. I, I don't know, like.
• 1:08:46
  That's Eric Stoltz. That's Eric Stoltz.
• 1:08:48
  Yeah. And like, to me, he's always
• 1:08:52
  that guy. He was like, too good at playing
• 1:08:54
  like that kind of creepy character in that movie.
• 1:09:00
  Yeah, well, that's cool. I did not know that was him.
• 1:09:02
  Yeah, yeah, so, but but, you know, he's like, not that
• 1:09:08
  character in this movie, but that's just like.
• 1:09:10
  What? I'm not a drug dealer in the
• 1:09:12
  army. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:14
  His character's interesting because like, again, you know,
• 1:09:17
  we're still centering in like the first act here.
• 1:09:19
  Like the the film just really feels like it's, it's building
• 1:09:23
  up because you, you, you feel like you have a sense of where
• 1:09:26
  it's going. It's like it's all of these
• 1:09:28
  characters, you know, this is they're going to go fly their
• 1:09:31
  last mission. They're kind of like they're
• 1:09:34
  trying to crack camaraderie between them and stuff.
• 1:09:36
  But there's also this like huge like unspoken tension because
• 1:09:40
  it's war and they're, you know, so you just like, it kind of
• 1:09:45
  gives you this like unease where it's like, oh man, these
• 1:09:48
  characters like once once things get going, it's like some of
• 1:09:51
  these characters that we're getting to know are probably
• 1:09:53
  going to start dying. And like, you know, it's going
• 1:09:55
  to get like very dramatic. And then that just doesn't
• 1:10:00
  happen. Like, you know, it just doesn't
• 1:10:03
  deliver on that, which was really disappointing, you know,
• 1:10:08
  'cause it's like, like I said at the beginning, I'm like this,
• 1:10:10
  this feels like prestige drama in a sense.
• 1:10:13
  You know, it's like we're we're this is very like aiming to to
• 1:10:18
  at least appear historically accurate and like dramatic.
• 1:10:23
  But it's just like the limitations, I guess of the
• 1:10:29
  story itself, like because the the entire rest of the film,
• 1:10:34
  once they like go out on their final mission is like they're a
• 1:10:37
  bomber plane. So it's just these guys like up
• 1:10:41
  in a plane for the rest of the movie.
• 1:10:44
  Like, not exactly front lines. I mean, it's like they are, but
• 1:10:48
  you can't threaten danger beyond like they might hit us and then
• 1:10:52
  either they do or they don't. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:54
  It's just like there's other planes shooting at them and it's
• 1:10:59
  like this plane that they're in feels very claustrophobic, which
• 1:11:03
  I guess that's to the tension in a sense, 'cause it's like I
• 1:11:06
  wouldn't even want to be in their period, let alone like in
• 1:11:09
  the middle of a war zone in the air.
• 1:11:12
  But it's just visually, it's just like you don't see anything
• 1:11:15
  else. There's, there's like nothing
• 1:11:16
  they can really show and no way to really move this story
• 1:11:22
  forward in an interesting way. Once they're up there, you know,
• 1:11:26
  'cause their mission is like, OK, we got to go bomb this place
• 1:11:30
  and then turn around and fly home.
• 1:11:31
  That's it. That's the whole thing, the
• 1:11:34
  goal. Yeah.
• 1:11:35
  And Eric Stoltz character, he has this whole thing like, you
• 1:11:40
  know, where they're when they're introducing everybody, where all
• 1:11:43
  the other characters are like talking about what they're going
• 1:11:45
  to do when they go home and like once the war is over.
• 1:11:49
  And he has this like film camera with him.
• 1:11:51
  So he's always, like, taking pictures of everybody.
• 1:11:53
  And he's like, he's like, yeah, I don't know what I'm going to
• 1:11:56
  do. He's like, this feels like home
• 1:11:57
  now, you know? He's like, I've become so close
• 1:11:59
  with all these people here, you know?
• 1:12:00
  And he's like, I guess that's why I'm always, like, taking
• 1:12:02
  their photos because I, like, want to remember them.
• 1:12:04
  Like, you know, once the war is over and we, like, go our
• 1:12:06
  separate ways and like, to me, I'm watching it.
• 1:12:10
  And I'm like, Oh, well, OK, he's going to die, you know, He's
• 1:12:13
  like. Absolutely he's going to die
• 1:12:15
  like that's that's the human interest story is like so many
• 1:12:18
  young people die in armed conflicts whose whole lives are
• 1:12:22
  ahead of them. And so you can tell interesting
• 1:12:24
  stories about like what never was I I would all I would
• 1:12:27
  immediately assume that's like the point of the movie if I was
• 1:12:29
  watching it. Yes, well, and especially
• 1:12:31
  because he's he's the one like he's taking all these photos.
• 1:12:33
  So I'm like, oh, he's going to die.
• 1:12:35
  But then they're going to have all these photos that he took,
• 1:12:37
  you know? And maybe either no photos of
• 1:12:39
  him or like 1. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:12:42
  Because like they're, they're like all annoyed.
• 1:12:43
  They're like, they're like, you know, all the, all the other
• 1:12:46
  characters are like, stop that. You know, they're like like.
• 1:12:52
  Stop that. Stop doing that.
• 1:12:55
  Well, yeah, it's just like it's so and then it just doesn't
• 1:12:59
  happen. He's the one character that and
• 1:13:02
  and you know, again, I'm I'm jumping to the end here because
• 1:13:05
  not much happens in this movie, unfortunately, like.
• 1:13:08
  But is that the similarity between the two movies in this
• 1:13:11
  episode 2 films where not much happened?
• 1:13:14
  Except a lot happened in the sphere, like not nothing logical
• 1:13:18
  happened, but like there was like a million different things
• 1:13:20
  going on. Where is this is just like, oh
• 1:13:23
  boy, OK. Two guys on a plane.
• 1:13:29
  Basically like, but his character is the only one that's
• 1:13:33
  even really like he gets shot like they're up in the air and
• 1:13:36
  other planes are shooting. The big dramatic point of the
• 1:13:39
  film is they're they're flying. Their mission is to go bomb this
• 1:13:43
  like factory that's like building, you know, army stuff
• 1:13:50
  that's building like you. Can tell our experience in this
• 1:13:54
  area, you know, army stuff, there's building army stuff,
• 1:13:58
  more planes, more memories. Something we don't want them to
• 1:14:01
  build Legos maybe, who knows? But they're just, they're like,
• 1:14:06
  OK, but there's like a hospital nearby and like a school or
• 1:14:11
  something. So like we got to be really
• 1:14:12
  accurate and just bomb this building and like they, you
• 1:14:18
  know, when they get there, they're like, oh, it's like
• 1:14:20
  there's a bunch of smoke or something.
• 1:14:22
  And like we can't see the target.
• 1:14:23
  So it like there's this whole thing where they're like, do we
• 1:14:27
  drop the bombs anyway? And Matthew Modine, he's like
• 1:14:32
  the captain of third unit. And he's like, well, no, we
• 1:14:34
  can't just drop him, you know, if we're not going to be
• 1:14:37
  accurate. And he's like, so we got to
• 1:14:39
  come. We got to like do a lap and or
• 1:14:41
  we got to, you know, turn around and come back and like do it
• 1:14:44
  again. And they're all like, well, let
• 1:14:46
  you know that's a death warrant. You know, that's like, you don't
• 1:14:48
  do that. Yeah, but then again, it just
• 1:14:53
  works like we're back, like. And we're back.
• 1:14:58
  Eric Stoltz, when they fly back around, like, he gets shot from
• 1:15:01
  one of the other planes. And again, I'm like, well, yeah,
• 1:15:04
  obviously, like, if anyone's going to die, it's going to be
• 1:15:07
  his character. But then he doesn't.
• 1:15:08
  Like he survives in the end. In a fictional version of the
• 1:15:12
  story, they couldn't introduce more like.
• 1:15:16
  Expendable characters. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:15:18
  It's just like, it just, it felt antithetical even to the story
• 1:15:24
  that they were trying to tell. You know, like, because the the
• 1:15:28
  movie just ends where it's like we didn't like everyone.
• 1:15:35
  Like, you know, it's like we won the big game.
• 1:15:39
  Like we didn't kill those innocent people, we killed those
• 1:15:42
  other people. Yeah, anyway, let's go home
• 1:15:47
  like. Starting to ask a lot of
• 1:15:50
  questions, Sarge. Sorry, war's over.
• 1:15:52
  Too many questions. Go home.
• 1:15:56
  It was just odd. Yeah.
• 1:15:58
  It was just like, what happened here.
• 1:16:00
  It's like you were setting up to be such an interesting film to
• 1:16:04
  really show the horrors of war. And like, even put these like,
• 1:16:09
  it's a film I'm thinking of. I can't remember what it was.
• 1:16:12
  I've been based on a book or something, you know, but it's
• 1:16:17
  just, it's like a common thing. It's like, like, you know, it's
• 1:16:20
  like, oh, you put all these guys and they're like trapped on the
• 1:16:22
  sub and they start to like hate each other and like turn on each
• 1:16:25
  other, you know, 'cause it's like they're.
• 1:16:26
  All they're trapped in a sphere on a spaceship they're.
• 1:16:28
  Trapped in a sphere. There it is.
• 1:16:30
  There's the common ground. Like, but none of that happens.
• 1:16:35
  There's like it it it feels like they like tried to like force
• 1:16:38
  things in to kind of create tension or drama for these
• 1:16:41
  characters like Harry Connick Junior's character, He's like
• 1:16:45
  their one of their like Gunners on the plane, you know, and he's
• 1:16:49
  just like this super nice, like country kid or whatever.
• 1:16:52
  And one of the other characters who he's like the copilot, I
• 1:16:58
  guess, like he, you know, he's up front with Matthew Moody.
• 1:17:01
  'S character. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:17:03
  He's he's Alexa, where are we? Alexa, I need a linguine recipe
• 1:17:10
  and also information on how to drop a bomb.
• 1:17:13
  Like, but his whole thing is like, he's he's like telling
• 1:17:17
  Harry Connick Junior, he's like, man, you got to let me, like,
• 1:17:20
  use your gun at one point. He's like, if I don't kill any
• 1:17:22
  Nazis before the war is over, you know, I won't be able to go
• 1:17:25
  home and, like, brag to all the girls.
• 1:17:26
  Like, that's his, like, thing, right?
• 1:17:31
  Yeah. So like, and, and what that sets
• 1:17:35
  up is, like, at one point, Harry Connick Junior, like, lets him
• 1:17:37
  do it. And like he shoots down like an
• 1:17:40
  enemy plane and he gets all excited, but then the plane that
• 1:17:43
  he shot down like crashes into one of like their guys planes,
• 1:17:47
  like one of the American soldiers planes.
• 1:17:49
  And like so they both explode and then he feels all like, Oh
• 1:17:53
  no. But then we just move on.
• 1:17:55
  We just move fast. Just.
• 1:17:57
  Move on, Sarge. Copilot's got a question and
• 1:18:00
  they're like, sorry, he's got to go send him back.
• 1:18:03
  We're just pushing characters out of the plane throughout the
• 1:18:05
  movie with parachutes. Every time they ask too many
• 1:18:07
  questions, it's. Just even that would have been
• 1:18:10
  more interesting. Like it's kind of like Seinfeld.
• 1:18:13
  It's like, and then maybe something happens.
• 1:18:15
  No, nothing happens. Nothing happens.
• 1:18:19
  Yeah, I just this in a weird way, is why I picked this movie.
• 1:18:23
  I feel like there's, there's such a unwinnable task in
• 1:18:27
  depicting like even this one, trying to depict a real story
• 1:18:31
  while being sensitive enough to not use real people like it.
• 1:18:34
  You know, it's a fictional depiction of this and it's like
• 1:18:37
  a win for America, like the mission succeeded.
• 1:18:40
  But any sort of depiction of these conflicts, which I think
• 1:18:44
  aren't, obviously we've never been able to avoid armed
• 1:18:47
  conflict throughout history, but it's inherently like tragic and
• 1:18:50
  irresponsible. So it's like, how do you tell a
• 1:18:51
  story in here that does not ultimately condemn the entire
• 1:18:55
  notion? Like, And it feels like
• 1:18:58
  sometimes they don't. They just say like, well, these
• 1:18:59
  parts are bad. And it's like all the parts.
• 1:19:01
  Are bad yes, exactly yeah and that's that's what I really I
• 1:19:06
  really thought they were doing something there at the beginning
• 1:19:08
  because like yeah, you know the characters it's like you do
• 1:19:13
  definitely get that sense where it's like these group of
• 1:19:14
  characters are they're like bonded together through this
• 1:19:19
  traumatic experience they're all going through and they're all
• 1:19:21
  young kids you know they're like fresh out of high school or
• 1:19:24
  college. So it's very tragic.
• 1:19:26
  It's like you, you recognize from the beginning that these
• 1:19:29
  characters are all in this tragic situation together, but
• 1:19:31
  they they have this this strong bond and like they're doing what
• 1:19:36
  they think is right, some of them.
• 1:19:41
  But then the rest of the film just, it just doesn't do enough
• 1:19:43
  to to follow up with those characters even, you know, it's
• 1:19:46
  like once they're up in the air, it it's like it, it doesn't
• 1:19:51
  matter. You know, it's like you can't
• 1:19:52
  even, it doesn't matter which character you're looking at
• 1:19:54
  because it's, it's all just becomes very like monotonous and
• 1:19:58
  like gelatinous. It's just like, yeah, like it's.
• 1:20:01
  Like is there a beef plot? Like are we cutting away from
• 1:20:05
  their plane to anything else or is it mostly just them?
• 1:20:09
  This is like I was saying before it's it seems like the movie
• 1:20:12
  feels like it was like trying to grasp at straws in terms of like
• 1:20:16
  anything else they could show us because it cuts away once and it
• 1:20:20
  feels so out of place because like at the beginning of the
• 1:20:23
  movie, John Lithgow's character is like, he's like the PR guy,
• 1:20:27
  you know, so he's trying to like he's like, Oh, once you guys fly
• 1:20:30
  this mission, you know, we're going to send you back home and
• 1:20:32
  you're going to be like in the newspapers and you're going to
• 1:20:34
  be like celebrities. And so he's kind of like at odds
• 1:20:38
  with like the Colonel on base because he's like, no, this, you
• 1:20:42
  know, this is serious. Like, you know, this is we're
• 1:20:45
  not just here for your stupid like newspaper photos or
• 1:20:48
  whatever. And so that's that's at the
• 1:20:50
  beginning, you know, and it's like that that all feels very in
• 1:20:54
  tone with the story they're telling.
• 1:20:56
  But again, then they leave and the rest of the movie is just
• 1:20:59
  you're following these guys up in this plane.
• 1:21:00
  And so it just randomly at one point cuts back to what John
• 1:21:04
  Lithgow was doing back at this base.
• 1:21:06
  And he just has this scene with like the Colonel where he's just
• 1:21:08
  like, like the Colonel has to like educate him, I guess, and
• 1:21:13
  be like, he's like, read all these like, you know, like he's
• 1:21:16
  like, this is serious. Like read all these letters of
• 1:21:19
  like family members of soldiers under my command that have died,
• 1:21:23
  you know, and it's just like. And then you just cut away from
• 1:21:26
  that back to what our other characters in the plane are
• 1:21:28
  doing. And it's kind of like that
• 1:21:29
  didn't move the plot forward. You know that that thing that we
• 1:21:32
  cut away to was just and then this happened over here.
• 1:21:37
  And then also this. Yeah, I feel like my main point
• 1:21:40
  of reference for this in terms of a World War 2 movie that I
• 1:21:43
  think most people would agree is pretty good, would be Saving
• 1:21:45
  Private Ryan. And I think that that one has a
• 1:21:48
  pretty good premise that creates an interesting angle on a war
• 1:21:52
  story because it takes a very human emotional angle at like
• 1:21:56
  the symbolism of conflict where, as I recall, it's been a long
• 1:21:59
  time. I think the reason they go try
• 1:22:02
  to save this random soldier is because his family, his mom sent
• 1:22:06
  like 6 or seven sons into battle in World War 2 and all of them
• 1:22:11
  are already dead except for this one.
• 1:22:13
  And so as like APR type thing. And for morale, sort of they
• 1:22:17
  send a whole task force unit of soldiers to go bring this one
• 1:22:21
  pointless kid home. Not pointless, but like there's
• 1:22:25
  one kid home that has no strategic value to the war.
• 1:22:28
  Just as like a human emotional reaction to that tragedy of like
• 1:22:32
  this mother has lost all of her kids except for one.
• 1:22:35
  We have to try to send one of them home, even though doing so
• 1:22:39
  is not strategically viable and risks the lives of other men.
• 1:22:42
  It's like about how these conflicts, as logistical as they
• 1:22:47
  can be, really are like emotional conflicts in a way,
• 1:22:50
  even at like a nation level. And I think that is gives you
• 1:22:54
  permission as the viewer to care about the people in the story
• 1:22:57
  and not feel bogged down by these same questions.
• 1:23:00
  And I feel like a lot of other World War Two stories are just
• 1:23:02
  wartime films. Like struggle to be about both
• 1:23:05
  because they don't do a good enough job of giving you an
• 1:23:08
  angle to look at it from other than the obvious.
• 1:23:10
  Like, this is all horrible. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:23:12
  And, and the problem with this one too is just you really don't
• 1:23:16
  care about these characters, you know, other than in like a
• 1:23:19
  general sense, but there's nothing like connecting you to
• 1:23:22
  them. Like pretty much all of them.
• 1:23:25
  Like I said, it's kind of this ensemble cast, about 10 or so
• 1:23:27
  characters, but they all basically have like 1 sentence
• 1:23:30
  back stories that you get, you know, it's like this guy used to
• 1:23:35
  be in the furniture business and this guy's from Chicago.
• 1:23:39
  Like it's just like. That's my favorite.
• 1:23:42
  I'm from Chicago. I've been there.
• 1:23:46
  I've been there. So.
• 1:23:48
  You know, it, it there's just nothing to play off of there.
• 1:23:51
  You know, it's it's like you don't know enough about any of
• 1:23:53
  these characters that they all just kind of feel the same.
• 1:23:57
  This is this is an another movie too, where it's like, I think
• 1:24:01
  there's there's one scene where there's a woman in the movie who
• 1:24:06
  has lines, but other than that, oh.
• 1:24:10
  No. Keep giving me these these
• 1:24:12
  mansphere movies. These Manosphere daily movies,
• 1:24:16
  Oh my gosh, I that's both of your movies for the month of
• 1:24:19
  November are completely devoid of women.
• 1:24:23
  This one has one. There's one woman.
• 1:24:25
  One who has one we're averaging. We're averaging .5 women per
• 1:24:29
  movie. Yeah, I'll have to take that
• 1:24:32
  into account for my next pick. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:35
  It's just, yeah. So it just gives you nothing
• 1:24:38
  like and visually it's so uninteresting.
• 1:24:41
  You know, once they're up in that plane, 'cause it's just
• 1:24:44
  like, Yep, that's it. It's a really small plane.
• 1:24:47
  Well, I've seen it. I mean, that's crazy.
• 1:24:51
  Are we talking like what, like an hour plus of the story?
• 1:24:54
  It's just them up in the plane. Yeah, absolutely so.
• 1:24:57
  It's like a bottle premise almost.
• 1:24:59
  Totally, yeah. I mean, you spend, again, the
• 1:25:01
  first act, they're on this military base and it feels like
• 1:25:06
  this calm before the storm. And then it's just like, it's
• 1:25:10
  like even when they're in danger, it's like they can't
• 1:25:13
  visibly show it in an interesting way.
• 1:25:15
  You know, it's like you're seeing our characters like
• 1:25:17
  inside this tiny little plane. It's like, oh, we're getting
• 1:25:19
  shot at. And then you're like.
• 1:25:25
  Bullet noise. It's raining too.
• 1:25:26
  It's. Like an improv show like that.
• 1:25:31
  Just in an empty set of their plane and they're just like, I
• 1:25:35
  better go grab some water. Glug glug glug.
• 1:25:39
  It's like I need a place. Chicago.
• 1:25:41
  OK, All right, so we're. I'm from Chicago.
• 1:25:43
  It's. Just like, so it's just like, it
• 1:25:49
  just gives you nothing. It gives you nothing to connect
• 1:25:52
  with and nothing like to look at.
• 1:25:56
  And there's even like there's like, there's like a multiple
• 1:25:59
  like fake outs even of like something happening, but then it
• 1:26:04
  doesn't happen. Like like I said, Eric Stolt's
• 1:26:06
  character, he's the only one that gets like injured, he gets
• 1:26:08
  shot. And like there's like a kind of
• 1:26:11
  interesting thing where Billy Zane's character again, one
• 1:26:15
  sentence back story for everybody.
• 1:26:16
  They're like, oh, you know, he's going to be a doctor.
• 1:26:18
  He went to medical school. But like when Eric Stoltz
• 1:26:22
  character gets shot, they're like, like, oh, oh, you know,
• 1:26:25
  you can help him. Billy Zane, you know, you went
• 1:26:26
  to Med school and he's like, yeah, no, I lied.
• 1:26:28
  I I didn't go to Med school. I I don't know this guy.
• 1:26:30
  Let's throw him out of the plane.
• 1:26:33
  Like he did it. Dustin Hoffman, he made it up.
• 1:26:36
  Yeah, yeah. And that's like, literally his
• 1:26:38
  plan. He's like, he's like, I can't
• 1:26:39
  help this guy. Like he's like, I think
• 1:26:42
  genuinely his best bet is if we try and like, bandage him up,
• 1:26:45
  put a parachute on him and then like drop him into Germany and
• 1:26:48
  hope somebody finds him and helps him.
• 1:26:50
  Sarge, we can't do that. Then a movie would happen.
• 1:26:53
  Yeah, right. Exactly.
• 1:26:55
  Then we'd have to go back and get him.
• 1:26:56
  Then we'd have to turn around again like.
• 1:26:58
  You want us to do Saving Private Stoltz?
• 1:27:01
  No way. Like, but then it's like the
• 1:27:05
  other characters are like, no, you can do it, Billy Zane.
• 1:27:08
  And he's like, all right, I'll give it a shot even though I
• 1:27:10
  actually don't have any medical training and this man's been
• 1:27:13
  shot and I don't know what to do.
• 1:27:15
  And then we kind of just don't show what he does.
• 1:27:17
  And Eric Stoltz character live somehow.
• 1:27:19
  Wait, what? We don't even get it.
• 1:27:22
  He just wills himself to no medicine enough to save this
• 1:27:26
  man's life. I.
• 1:27:26
  Don't know what he does. He didn't show it.
• 1:27:28
  There's just like. Anyway, moving on.
• 1:27:30
  In a movie with this little 2 show, to find something that
• 1:27:34
  critical and decide we don't need to show that is insane.
• 1:27:37
  Well, it's like they didn't know how they didn't know what to
• 1:27:40
  because it was like it was a beat that they like wrote
• 1:27:42
  themselves into a corner. They're like, oh, what?
• 1:27:44
  What if he didn't actually go to medical school?
• 1:27:47
  You know, like, he doesn't know how to help him, Like, and then
• 1:27:49
  it's like this tragic thing. Billy Zane's like like half
• 1:27:53
  delivering a line. He's just like the only thing we
• 1:27:55
  have to to stop the bleeding is and then he pulls like a piece
• 1:27:58
  of paper out of a top hat and he's like a candle, his audience
• 1:28:02
  suggested. Burn him like like.
• 1:28:07
  Saying I think the candle might have worked.
• 1:28:08
  We could have like cauterized it.
• 1:28:09
  And he's like, Nah, I just, I just burned him somewhere.
• 1:28:13
  Like, yeah, but it's like, but it's like they wrote that in and
• 1:28:16
  then they didn't like like. And then he just through the
• 1:28:19
  power of imagination sphere magic just makes him whole
• 1:28:23
  again. Like, yeah, well, somebody ran
• 1:28:25
  in front of the other characters, which denoted the
• 1:28:27
  end of the scene, so they had to.
• 1:28:29
  Move on. No.
• 1:28:30
  Well, yeah, title card came down and.
• 1:28:31
  Title card came down and just said yeah, the machine and there
• 1:28:34
  something else. Doesn't make sense, but.
• 1:28:39
  I thought that this episode would be a slam dunk for me
• 1:28:42
  'cause you made me watch Sphere, but no, I'm not so sure.
• 1:28:45
  No, no, I, I, I get like, like I said, this is probably the first
• 1:28:51
  of the films that I've watched for the show to have such a
• 1:28:54
  complete fall off. You know, it, it's just, it's,
• 1:28:58
  it's a rare thing for, for a film really to have this kind of
• 1:29:02
  trajectory for me, like viewing it where it's just like, because
• 1:29:07
  it feels like you're like sold on this promise of this
• 1:29:10
  interesting drama from everything that it sets up in a
• 1:29:13
  way, you know, 'cause it 'cause it feels like you get this even
• 1:29:17
  with all these individual characters.
• 1:29:18
  It feels like you kind of get this set up one sentence setups
• 1:29:22
  for everybody. But then it almost feels like,
• 1:29:24
  you know, then once they're in in the thick of things, it's
• 1:29:27
  like then something would happen with all of them.
• 1:29:30
  You know, it's like that thing where it's like Billy Zane.
• 1:29:32
  It's like he, you know, he lied about his background.
• 1:29:34
  It's like. Maybe that would be
• 1:29:35
  consequential in some way. Yes, exactly.
• 1:29:38
  But like none of the other characters even get anything
• 1:29:40
  like that. You know, there's just like no
• 1:29:42
  follow up with any of the other characters.
• 1:29:44
  They're just completely static throughout the rest of the film.
• 1:29:47
  And it's like it may have been salvageable in in other ways if
• 1:29:51
  like you could at least have something visually interesting
• 1:29:54
  on screen, but it's like you don't even get that.
• 1:29:56
  It's you just get this claustrophobic space that you're
• 1:29:59
  in the whole time where it's almost, it almost is like
• 1:30:02
  they're like pantomiming what's happening to them.
• 1:30:05
  You know, 'cause you get like really almost no shots even of
• 1:30:09
  the outside of the plane. You know, you don't get these
• 1:30:12
  like exteriors and like. Crazy.
• 1:30:15
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:30:16
  So I mean, I can understand maybe the intention if you
• 1:30:19
  wanted to feel super claustrophobic, but still.
• 1:30:22
  Yeah, but it's like not even that.
• 1:30:23
  It's like it, it tries, it's like, it feels like it tried to
• 1:30:26
  go because I mean, that original documentary was was like a
• 1:30:30
  propaganda film basically, you know, it's like here, here's
• 1:30:32
  support the war effort, like. Recycle your nylon.
• 1:30:39
  So like so it feels like free. Boga So I don't intend to keep
• 1:30:47
  doing voices on the show, sorry. Casablanca.
• 1:30:52
  Casablanca sounds like a bad like gangster movie.
• 1:30:58
  Like it's. Not seems like a very specific
• 1:31:02
  accent they would do in those 40s movies and that's not it.
• 1:31:04
  This. Is like not not it, but it it's
• 1:31:10
  like this film almost feels like in that same spirit, you know,
• 1:31:14
  it just feels like this like like it has that energy of like
• 1:31:17
  a sports movie where it's like we did it.
• 1:31:20
  It was tough out there in the third quarter, but we put, I
• 1:31:23
  don't know, I keep, I keep slipping into that accent.
• 1:31:25
  Now they almost had us out there, those Germans.
• 1:31:31
  None of the characters talk like that.
• 1:31:37
  Yeah, but it'd be funny if they did it.
• 1:31:39
  Would be funny. Germany.
• 1:31:42
  Germany scores in the second-half.
• 1:31:51
  OK, Frank, a couple of flops today as far as our forgotten
• 1:31:56
  90s picks as Fear was terrible. It sounds like Memphis Belle
• 1:31:59
  really suffered from being just kind of boring.
• 1:32:02
  So I'm curious to see who's going to win.
• 1:32:04
  It's going to be the battle of the losers.
• 1:32:05
  Yeah, yeah. It's a tough one.
• 1:32:07
  It's a tough one. I'll go first since my review
• 1:32:10
  came up first. Sphere is my least favorite
• 1:32:13
  movie I've watched for the show. It may be very mad, but as we
• 1:32:17
  keep running into, we're like trying to set the floor and the
• 1:32:20
  ceiling for like how to score a film because you and I are not
• 1:32:23
  used to this. We we never did this before
• 1:32:25
  starting the show because it's productive, but now we're trying
• 1:32:28
  to rate things out of 10 and not look like frauds.
• 1:32:30
  And so I want it to be relatively consistent.
• 1:32:33
  So I can't just say like Sphere was awful.
• 1:32:35
  It's a 0 because that's it. No, there's so much further down
• 1:32:38
  you could go than this movie in terms of like more boring, more
• 1:32:42
  incoherent, like non functioning.
• 1:32:45
  So I think I'm going to give Sphere a 2 out of 10 because it
• 1:32:49
  does a couple of things well. Like visually it actually
• 1:32:51
  impressed me more than I expected.
• 1:32:53
  It looks nice. It's just an like unbelievably
• 1:32:56
  dumb movie that is not even fun to watch for its dumbness.
• 1:33:01
  It's just aggravating. So I think I'm going to give
• 1:33:04
  that one A2. I mean that that feels deserved.
• 1:33:08
  That feels like a like a 2. Like don't, don't watch Sphere
• 1:33:12
  out of like, I'm going to watch it anyway because it sounds so
• 1:33:15
  silly it will bore you to tears. It's such an annoying.
• 1:33:19
  Film, yeah, I mean it like on paper it sounds like, you know,
• 1:33:24
  when you throw in so many wacky elements that like, even if it's
• 1:33:26
  bad, it could be interesting because that's, that's the
• 1:33:29
  that's the territory I kind of more lean into.
• 1:33:31
  Like I prefer like theoretically, I would prefer a
• 1:33:35
  sphere to a Memphis Belle, you know, whereas Memphis fellas
• 1:33:39
  just this very kind of like technically correct in a lot of
• 1:33:42
  ways, but falls flat. So it just kind of falls into
• 1:33:44
  this like nowhere territory. Whereas like Spear is not an
• 1:33:48
  example of this, but similar films to it where it's like they
• 1:33:50
  kind of shoot for their moon in terms of like creativity or or
• 1:33:54
  just like craziness to the point where it becomes interesting
• 1:33:57
  even if it's a bad film. So theoretically I would prefer
• 1:34:02
  a spirit, a sphere that is. Yeah, that is a tough one.
• 1:34:06
  It's hard to say, right? To a Memphis Belle.
• 1:34:09
  But this one sounds like a unique case of it just being so
• 1:34:13
  poorly executed in every way that it was just like there's
• 1:34:16
  nothing redeeming about it. It should have been more of a
• 1:34:19
  slam dunk because like, I'm super open to science fiction.
• 1:34:22
  Some people don't like sci-fi in the 1st place.
• 1:34:23
  But like, we both are huge, you know, into that genre much more
• 1:34:28
  so than war films. So like it was almost favored
• 1:34:31
  towards sphere and it still managed to mess it up.
• 1:34:33
  Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Which is a bummer.
• 1:34:36
  I didn't know. I did not know what sphere was.
• 1:34:40
  It was going to be that bad when I picked it.
• 1:34:42
  Well, we forgot about it. We chose to forget about.
• 1:34:45
  I used the stones to destroy the stones.
• 1:34:50
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
• 1:34:52
  So 2 out of 10. Poor sphere.
• 1:34:56
  OK, over to you. What's your final tally for
• 1:35:00
  Memphis Belle? This is this is a hard one
• 1:35:03
  because if I turned this movie off 20 minutes in and just
• 1:35:08
  imagined what the rest of it would be, I was I would be like,
• 1:35:11
  that was probably a pretty good movie, but unfortunately I saw
• 1:35:15
  the rest so. Yep.
• 1:35:20
  It's it's like you said, it's, it's tough to find that that
• 1:35:22
  floor, find that ceiling. I think this is going to be a
• 1:35:29
  three. I think this is going to line up
• 1:35:31
  with grifters. A three OK right at right tide
• 1:35:34
  for the worst one that I've given to you.
• 1:35:37
  Yeah, it's just like out of all the movies I've watched for the
• 1:35:43
  show, those are the 2 where I just wouldn't want to watch them
• 1:35:47
  again. You know, like the you know, I
• 1:35:51
  listen back to our our episode we did with like the prophecy
• 1:35:55
  and you know, like I was telling you, I think off air, like I
• 1:35:57
  keep that from a four out of 10, but I'm like prophecy was so
• 1:36:00
  much more interesting than like a four out of 10, you know, if
• 1:36:04
  that makes sense. Like I, I do think we'll like
• 1:36:07
  we've mentioned we'll probably come back and kind of do sort of
• 1:36:09
  a retrospective where we talk about everything, but it's yeah,
• 1:36:13
  this one falls into that grifters territory.
• 1:36:15
  I'm just like no this just really did not click with me.
• 1:36:19
  Which is saying a lot because you and I are such film fans and
• 1:36:23
  you're like, working. You have literally made a
• 1:36:25
  feature yourself. So like, there's such an
• 1:36:27
  inherent interest in just how people put those pieces together
• 1:36:30
  that it's hard to be turned off completely by a movie.
• 1:36:33
  It's like you have to work so actively to be that boring or
• 1:36:37
  that annoying. And these two both succeeded.
• 1:36:39
  These these might be like the two worst movies we've had to
• 1:36:42
  review. And so it's funny to me that
• 1:36:44
  they ended up on the same episode.
• 1:36:46
  Yeah, yeah, 'cause it's not like we were like, you know what,
• 1:36:49
  let's do a, let's do a, a rotten, Rotten Tomatoes episode
• 1:36:52
  here. Like, you know, this is not
• 1:36:55
  intentional. This is just how it goes.
• 1:36:57
  It's just the nature of the show.
• 1:36:58
  Yeah. All right.
• 1:37:00
  So that's a three, you said for Memphis Belle, right?
• 1:37:02
  Yeah, yeah. OK, that's this is so
• 1:37:06
  fascinating. So we have two more episodes
• 1:37:08
  left before we decide who wins Season 1.
• 1:37:11
  We'll each recommend two more films.
• 1:37:12
  We'll rank those and then we'll do a cumulative total after 10
• 1:37:16
  episodes, we are within two points of each other.
• 1:37:19
  I've given you 10 films, total scores for that from you, 56
• 1:37:23
  points. You've given me 10 films, 54
• 1:37:25
  points, which both like mathematically makes sense.
• 1:37:28
  We're like averaging towards the middle and we're just like
• 1:37:31
  almost exactly tight. I just find that kind of
• 1:37:33
  baffling. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:37
  The fix is in all right. We're doing it for ratings well.
• 1:37:40
  I we're definitely not, we're definitely not.
• 1:37:42
  And I like, I'm glad that you're the one that have the total
• 1:37:45
  scores in front of you because I'm not like trying to be
• 1:37:48
  influenced by those in any way. I'm just trying to be like, this
• 1:37:50
  is this is just how I feel about this individual film, so.
• 1:37:54
  Yeah, the other funny thing is that I have won the episode
• 1:37:57
  despite the movie I gave you earning a three out of 10.
• 1:38:01
  That's how it goes. I did it.
• 1:38:03
  I have won episode 10, our landmark 10th episode, which
• 1:38:07
  means that as we move into our picks for next time, I'll I'll
• 1:38:10
  go first. Have we done like a straight up
• 1:38:13
  comedy on the show so far? Like, not like a not like a
• 1:38:17
  comedy drama, but just like a full blown comedy film.
• 1:38:20
  I I mean, I don't know, I guess that Wes Anderson movie was like
• 1:38:25
  in the comedy genre. That's true.
• 1:38:28
  That's more of a comedy, but it's like a Moody indie comedy.
• 1:38:32
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it wasn't like a Ace Ventura
• 1:38:34
  like, you know, OK. I'll go in that direction then,
• 1:38:38
  you know what I mean? By the time this next episode's
• 1:38:40
  coming out will be towards the end of the year, people just
• 1:38:42
  trying to unwind. Nothing too serious, No more
• 1:38:44
  war, you know, some laughs, some laughs.
• 1:38:48
  So I am going to ask you to watch 1997's The Wrong Guy,
• 1:38:52
  which is a movie I saw on some thread recently.
• 1:38:56
  I think the star of the movie is one of the guys from Kids in the
• 1:38:58
  Hall. You know the old comedy group.
• 1:39:01
  I don't kids in the. Hall Yeah.
• 1:39:03
  They had like a show in the 90s. It was like a sketch comedy
• 1:39:05
  thing. The premise of the wrong guy, to
• 1:39:07
  my understanding, is it's like this regular office worker guy,
• 1:39:12
  his boss gets like murdered and he thinks that he's been framed
• 1:39:16
  for the murder and so he goes on the run even though no one
• 1:39:19
  actually thinks he killed the guy.
• 1:39:21
  That's funny premise, yeah. It's like a road trip kind of
• 1:39:25
  thing where like he thinks he's on the run from the law even
• 1:39:28
  though nobody's after him. OK.
• 1:39:30
  Yeah, just like your classic. Yeah, over to you.
• 1:39:34
  Over to me. So yeah, I don't know this one.
• 1:39:38
  This is an interesting one. I'm going to recommend to you.
• 1:39:44
  Actually, it's not a recommendation.
• 1:39:45
  It's more like a you have to watch this.
• 1:39:47
  More of an assignment, yeah, yeah.
• 1:39:51
  It's 1995's Cutthroat Island starring somebody I know you're
• 1:39:56
  a fan of. This is Geena Davis is the lead
• 1:40:00
  in this one. I do like Geena Davis.
• 1:40:03
  This is Sam Jackson in this one too.
• 1:40:06
  I don't think he is. I don't believe so.
• 1:40:08
  I could be wrong. And I don't know what this is.
• 1:40:10
  This is, and This is why I picked this film because it's
• 1:40:14
  interesting to me, kind of a piece of film history here in a
• 1:40:18
  way. This movie, it's like a pirate
• 1:40:20
  themed movie. Awesome, right?
• 1:40:24
  Totally awesome. But it was such a box office
• 1:40:30
  failure. I think it bankrupted a studio
• 1:40:35
  and basically like blacklisted pirate films from Hollywood for
• 1:40:42
  like a decade because like essentially this one did so
• 1:40:46
  poorly financially that like the studios just didn't believe in
• 1:40:49
  the bankability of pirate films after it until Pirates of the
• 1:40:54
  Caribbean. So oh.
• 1:40:57
  Wow. Yeah.
• 1:40:58
  So that's like an 8 year drought.
• 1:41:00
  Yes. Does it have like do you know if
• 1:41:03
  it's like critically pan too or is it just a box office flop?
• 1:41:06
  I didn't get into that because I didn't want to skew my
• 1:41:10
  perception of it or yours too much.
• 1:41:12
  Like good. Point.
• 1:41:13
  Good point. So I, I specifically avoided
• 1:41:17
  like looking into if it's, if it's actually a bad movie and
• 1:41:21
  that's why it performed poorly. And I'm sure there's, there's
• 1:41:24
  more stuff we can get into. I did read a little bit about
• 1:41:26
  like reasons why it did perform poorly.
• 1:41:30
  But yeah, I didn't get into the critical stuff because I I'll,
• 1:41:32
  I'll let you do that. I'll leave it up to me.
• 1:41:35
  Yeah, well, I'll tell you right now.
• 1:41:35
  Sphere was like a 17% Rotten Tomatoes, so you could have
• 1:41:40
  probably flagged that one a little bit earlier.
• 1:41:44
  It seems like it should be lower honestly, like.
• 1:41:45
  Seems like it should be lower. Yeah.
• 1:41:47
  Is there a zero? Is there a 0 on this thing?
• 1:41:49
  Oh, there's absolutely there's. There's 0 scores.
• 1:41:51
  Sorry, there's a 2. There's a 2 on here.
• 1:41:53
  It's a 2 out of 10. Which 17 out of 100?
• 1:41:55
  That is worse. That's true.
• 1:41:58
  Anyway, that's math, everybody. We'll see you in two weeks for
• 1:42:00
  the next episode of Meet Your Double Feature.
• 1:42:02
  Before we go, Frank, I feel like we should we should shout out
• 1:42:06
  our socials and our website because I sometimes forget to
• 1:42:08
  plug that at the end. We do have a website.
• 1:42:10
  You can listen to every episode of Meet Your Double Feature by
• 1:42:13
  going to Meet Your doublefeature.com spelled in
• 1:42:15
  full, just like the name of the show.
• 1:42:17
  We also have some blog posts on there.
• 1:42:18
  Frank just added one about the upcoming Frankenstein film on
• 1:42:22
  Netflix. So occasionally we're even going
• 1:42:24
  to cover stuff not covered directly on the podcast.
• 1:42:27
  And yeah, there's lots, lots more you can find there.
• 1:42:28
  You can find links to every other platform to listen on.
• 1:42:31
  So please go ahead and check it out.
• 1:42:32
  Meet your doublefeature.com. Yeah.
• 1:42:35
  Frankly, anything you want to plug or is it?
• 1:42:37
  Yeah, I guess that's it. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:42:43
  Well, you mentioned the socials too.
• 1:42:44
  I don't know if you wanted to plug the.
• 1:42:46
  I totally would if I had them in front of me.
• 1:42:48
  I want to say it's Instagram. Is meet your double feature on
• 1:42:51
  Instagram? We're also on Blue Sky on mydf
• 1:42:54
  pod because Blue Sky wouldn't let me type in the full name.
• 1:42:57
  Said it was too long anyway. We used to on the show on Funny
• 1:43:01
  things. Coming up next, It's the Wrong
• 1:43:19
  Guy, followed by Cutthroat Island on Meet Your Double
• 1:43:23
  Feature.